UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 SCORPIO No. 1 
 
 Containing 
 
 "A POET-CARAVAN" 
 And Other Sonnets 
 
 By 
 
 J. A. CHALONER 
 Author of "Scorpio" 
 
 'If there's a hole in a' your coats, 
 
 I rede ye tent it; 
 A chiel's amang ye takin' notes, 
 
 And, faith, he'll prent it." 
 
 Burnt. 
 
 129 7 " 
 
 PALMETTO PRESS 
 Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina 
 
 $1.50 Net 
 Nineteen Hundred and Thirteen
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 
 PALMETTO PRESS 
 
 1913
 
 "PS 
 3505 
 
 V.?, 
 
 tn >rnrptn Nn. 1. 
 
 In the Prologue of "Scorpio," page x, the following 
 words occur, to wit : "We shall each quarter publish a 
 small edition of 'Scorpio,' No. i, No. 2, No. 3, etc , etc." 
 
 We have so done. 
 
 We shall content ourselves with stating that we are 
 more than satisfied with the reception of "Scorpio" at the 
 hands of the reviewers. A perusal of the reviews cited in 
 the Appendix will show that we have cause as we lawyers 
 say for said state of mind. Considering the brief period 
 that has elapsed scarcely six weeks or so since "Scor- 
 pio" was sent out for review, the reviews have been ex- 
 ceedingly prompt, and satisfactory as prompt. 
 
 There are some few reviews which are not quite so sat- 
 isfactory. 
 
 Four of said hostile reviews have been replied to by us 
 in sonnets. 
 
 The two or three other less satisfactory reviews are far 
 less unsatisfactory than said four less satisfactory reviews. 
 Said diluted unsatisfactoriness so to speak springs from 
 a presumably well-meaning but far from well-informed 
 idea that, first: there is danger per se in publishing poetry 
 (m) 
 
 4C2G32
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 lest, forsooth, certain alienists assume to pronounce poets 
 crazy : second: that the author of "Scorpio" is in want of a 
 certificate of sanity because, now nearly seventeen years 
 ago, a "certificate of lunacy" was handed out to him by 
 certain alienists in New York City at the instigation of his 
 brothers and sisters with whom he had been on unfriendly 
 terms for about ten years, owing to a certain wedding's 
 having occurred at which said brothers and sisters again 
 for cause had not been "wedding guests," as the "An- 
 cient Mariner" hath it if we remember rightly. 
 
 Now, when one considers that the chief conspirator in 
 said dastardly conspiracy against the liberty, property, 
 health, happiness, and practically life of a citizen of the 
 sovereign State of Virginia, by a handful of mercenary 
 New York gentlemen and ladies whose aims and charac- 
 teristics are set forth in a triptych of three sonnets when 
 one considers that said chief conspirator, a brother of the 
 author of "Scorpio" is a proved and convicted perjurer, 
 upon his own testimony, in a deposition made by him in the 
 fall of 1905 de bene esse, as the legal term hath it, and on 
 file in the New York Supreme Court on Manhattan Island 
 for all who run to read; having confessed on the witness- 
 stand in said proceeding, that he had never seen the falsely 
 alleged acts he and his fellow perjurers and conspirators 
 he and they as falsely as he swore to having seen take 
 place at "The Merry Mills," nor heard the falsely alleged 
 statements put into the mouth of the author of "Scorpio"
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 by himself and brother perjurers and conspirators, and 
 upon which perjured statements alone the author of "Scor- 
 pio" lost now nearly seventeen years of his life a? life J 
 that is, in the enjoyment of an unsullied name and the con- 
 trol and custody of his own money ; and when one considers 
 further that the supplementary testimony of the said alien- 
 ists was palpably perjured besides being palpably bought 
 and paid for on the evidence all of which is fully set forth 
 and has been for lo ! now these seven years in "Four Years 
 Behind the Bars of 'Bloomingdale' ; Or, The Bankruptcy 
 of Law in New York" a document founded entirely and 
 absolutely upon court records and affidavits when one 
 calmly considers all said bristling, obstinate, obvious facts, 
 one is inclined to infer that there is more need of a reforma- 
 tion of the Lunacy Laws of about forty per cent, of the 
 States of this great Nation than a certificate of sanity for 
 ourselves as has been learnedly decreed by the guides of 
 courts and lawyers, namely, the Law Reviews, of which 
 five have been placed in the Appendix of "Scorpio No. i" 
 as the five were placed in the Appendix of "Scorpio" and 
 shall continue to be so placed until the people and news- 
 papers wake up and remove the sword of Damocles sus- 
 pended over the head of roughly estimated, say some forty 
 millions of citizens, male and female, by a single hair. 
 
 We did not willingly trench upon said topic. It was 
 forced down our throat by the Philadelphia "Inquirer's" 
 "bright young man," in the two following editorial para-
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 graphs as they came to us from our News Clipping Bu- 
 reau to wit: Philadelphia "Inquirer," May 6th, 1913. 
 "We understand that John Armstrong Chaloner has pub- 
 lished a book of poems, which leads us to suspect that that 
 New York Commission in lunacy was not so far wrong 
 after all." And again: "May I3th, 1913:" "Right on top 
 of the statement of that alienist that nine-tenths of the 
 poets are crazy, John Armstrong Chaloner has come out 
 with the announcement that he has written a whole book 
 of 'pomes.' " In the first place, we never attempted such a 
 witticism as the last quoted word implys ; in the second, any 
 such alienist is on the evidence so to speak, a "dam- 
 phool," and in the last place, the author of "Scorpio" has no 
 need to care what alienists allegedly think of him, since the 
 Circuit Court of Albemarle County, Virginia, pronounced 
 him sane and competent, November 6th, 1901, and the 
 Superior Court of North Carolina, shortly thereafter, and 
 the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in New 
 York City, handed down an opinion 162 Federal Reports, 
 19, cited in "Scorpio" so far back as 1908, in which that 
 august body second only to the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, held as follows: "The petitioner (J. A. C.) 
 as a citizen of the State of Virginia, in bringing his said 
 suit" (for the recovery of a million and a half of property 
 illegally taken from him by one Thomas T. Sherman, the 
 defendant) "in the District Court of the United States, was 
 availing himself of a right founded upon this constitutional
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 provision." ("The Constitution of the United States vests 
 in its judicial department jurisdiction over controversies 
 between citizens of different States") (the defendant, Sher- 
 man, hails from New York) "and he came into that court 
 with a decree of the court of the State of which he was a 
 citizen" (said Virginia decree of November 6th, 1901) 
 "declaring his sanity. We cannot disregard that decree. 
 In considering it we do not ignore the orders of the courts 
 of New York. Insanity is not necessarily permanent. For 
 the purpose of this petition laying aside jurisdictional 
 questions we may properly consider that the petitioner was 
 insane when so declared in New York, but that he had re- 
 covered his sanity when he was declared sane in Virginia." 
 Which is a judicial way of putting the following : "The pe- 
 titioner declares under oath that the parties behind the 
 lunacy proceedings against him, on the evidence, in New 
 York, the parties openly swearing to said proceedings and 
 therefore responsible for same, namely, his own brothers, 
 perjured themselves. If such was the case the New York 
 court never obtained jurisdiction over the person or prop- 
 erty of John Armstrong Chaloner, the petitioner, since per- 
 jury is fraud, and fraud destroys everything in law. That 
 question, however, has not been presented to us; as it has 
 to be first tried in the lower court said Federal District 
 Court until said question is finally decided, we for the 
 sake of argument have to allow Chaloner to remain un- 
 der the stigma of insanity, branded upon him by his broth-
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 ers in 1897 and 1899 in order that we may remove said 
 stigma from him now, on the strength of the decree of the 
 Virginia Court, holding him sane and competent in 1901." 
 
 We hasten to apologize to laymen for spreading so 
 much erudite law before their bewildered gaze but really 
 after writing the rascally, thieving, lying, debauching 
 
 and debauched other side "to H 1-and-on-down," as 
 
 Carlyle once jocularly observed after writing said bare- 
 faced villains to "H 1-and-on-down" in the five hundred 
 
 or so scoriae pages of "F. Y. B.," etc., aforesaid, the sub- 
 ject has become somewhat stale in our literary nostrils, 
 somewhat of a stench and we have a strong disgust of 
 touching upon it : we therefore once more reopen the seven- 
 teen-year-old scar, and start the old wound to running once 
 more for the edification of "bright young men" of the 
 kidney of the aforesaid Philadelphia "Inquirer," and the 
 more diluted unsatisfactories aforesaid, with the wish and 
 hope we might almost say, devout prayer that said flush- 
 ing of the scuppers of said hostile craft, may suffice once 
 and forever; and that in future our work may be judged 
 fearlessly on its merits by even diluted hostiles, enfran- 
 chised for all time from the threatening pestle of a lunacy 
 quack! 
 
 In dismissing this malodorous topic from a work as 
 divorced from matters legal as the Muses are from medi- 
 cine, we shall point out that the author of "Scorpio" who 
 spent nearly four years of a life-sentence in "Blooming-
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 dale" falsely so called its real name being "The Society 
 of the New York Hospital" with Hospital and Offices 
 the last time we were on foot in New York, i.e., in March, 
 1897 in Fifteenth Street, a few doors west of Fifth Ave- 
 nue we shall point out that the author of "Scorpio" never 
 was condemned by either a judge or a jury that ever laid 
 eyes on him ; that no judge has ever seen him in New York, 
 nor no jury! That in 1897 he was condemned unheard. 
 That in 1899 he was condemned unheard. So much for the 
 "bankruptcy of law" in Gotham, and about forty per cent, 
 of the sovereign States of this great Union. That the main 
 conspirators before the fact were Messrs. Winthrop Astor 
 Chanler veteran, wounded in the Spanish War. Former 
 Lieutenant-Governor of New York, Lewis Stuyvesant 
 Chanler these were the lay-perjurers so to speak. 
 While one, Moses A. Starr, M.D., was the professional per- 
 jurer in the 1897 proceedings. Which is to say that New 
 York alienists are practically professional perjurers. 
 Which is to say that they depend upon the art of perjury 
 for their daily bread. Thus. A lunacy shyster such as 
 Henry Lewis Morris, of the firm of Morris and Main, New 
 York City, Colonel William Jay of the firm of Jay and 
 Candler, Wall Street, New York, Egerton L. Winthrop, 
 Jr. of the same firm, or Joseph H. Choate, Jr., of the 
 firm of Evarts, Choate and Sherman, same street, same 
 town a lunacy shyster comes to them and says, very much 
 as follows : "We have a party we want to run into 'Bloom-
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 ingdale' for life. He's perfectly sane, but he and his fam- 
 ily have fallen out over a certain marriage, and they want 
 him put out of the way for life. You know that nothing 
 is easier, nothing is simpler, and above and beyond all, 
 nothing is safer for you and us than to railroad him behind 
 the bars on a 'doctored' charge of insanity, provided only 
 you play your cards properly. All you've got to do is to 
 make out a couple of false affidavits for the two of you 
 it takes two doctors to commit a man under the New York 
 Insanity Laws of 1896 one apiece, we mean, in which you 
 swear that the party said certain irrational things in your 
 hearing, and did certain irrational things in your presence, 
 and that, in your opinion, he is a fit subject for confinement 
 for life in a Madhouse. You will get a thousand dollars 
 apiece for your affidavits. His brothers will pay you that 
 out of his property." 
 
 Lunacy doctors in New York and in all large cities, 
 are under a terrible temptation to perjure away a man's lib- 
 erty, happiness, health and property for life. All men of 
 experience know what happens when a terrible temptation 
 confronts the average citizen. Said average citizen 
 knuckles under to said temptation, for the good and suffi- 
 cient reason, for the average citizen, that it is terrible. 
 Lunacy shysters in New York are also under a terrible 
 temptation for the self-same reason, and, alas ! with the 
 self -same result! By lunacy shysters we do not mean the 
 ordinary shyster known to newspaper men the "Tomb's
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 shyster" in New York, and the criminal court shysters in 
 other cities. No, we do not have in mind any such har- 
 ried, hurried, foul-looking "hard-up" individual as the above 
 far from it. The lunacy shyster differs materially from 
 his brother of the Tombs. The lunacy shyster is far from 
 being a shyster in appearance. The lunacy shyster is gen- 
 erally a gentleman not only in bearing and dress, but by 
 blood. Lunacy shysters in New York, particularly, are 
 blue-blooded. Colonel William Jay is descended lineally 
 from John Jay, the first Chief Justice of this distressful 
 country. Fancy the great-grandson of a Chief Justice of 
 the United States developing into a practicing shyster! 0! 
 temp or a. O! mores! 
 
 Henry Lewis Morris, again, is the lineal descendant 
 of Lewis Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence. Egerton L. Winthrop, Jr., is the son of the Beau 
 Brummel of the New York "Four Hundred," to wit : Eger- 
 ton L. Winthrop, Sr., both of whom are descended on the 
 male as we are on the female side from John Winthrop, 
 the first Governor of Massachusetts. Lastly, brother 
 Candler while not being blue-blooded being a novus 
 homo, a "new man," as the Romans had it, i.e., a man 
 whose ancestors had never been distinguished in the State 
 yet he is descended from an ancient Roman sacrificing- 
 priest at least if there is anything in a name for his 
 name is "Flamen" Flamen B. of which the dictionary 
 says, to wit : "The person who lights the sacrificial fires ; a
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 priest of ancient Rome." At all events he "lit the sacrifi- 
 cial fires" in our particular case all right, all right! He it 
 was, who in conjunction with Cousin Egerton L. Win- 
 throp, Jr., and Colonel William Jay, under the orders of the 
 head legal devil in the combine the Chanler family's fam- 
 ily lawyer, who acted as the "Bloomingdale" steering com- 
 mittee said Henry Lewis Morris, put thro' the debauched 
 and perjured proceedings before the Sheriff's Jury in New 
 York in 1899, at the instigation of the aforesaid Messrs. 
 Chanler, aided and abetted by those two hoary old ruze 
 dogs of veteran-perjurers Docs. Austin Flint, Sr., and 
 Carlos F. Macdonald, both of Gotham. Said proceedings 
 were held before a phantom- jury to coin a phrase. A 
 jury of phantoms sat on the author of "Scorpio" twenty 
 miles away from him and his cell at "Bloomingdale," falsely 
 so called, and solemnly pronounced him a hopeless lunatic 
 and incompetent person, without having laid eyes on him ! 
 So far as we were concerned, at all events, said Sheriff's 
 Jury was a Phantom Jury. 
 
 The last lot of rascals to be unearthed by us in this 
 Prologue is a very dignified lot of rascals indeed ! High in 
 the counsels of the Church, of the Law, of Finance, and of 
 Society in the Metropolis of the United States, "little old 
 New York." 
 
 We now copy from pages 135-136 in "Four Years Be- 
 hind the Bars of 'Bloomingdale,' " from which the above 
 pages are a rehash more or less gentle, diluted, and mild.
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 To wit : "From . . . the Annual Report of the Society 
 of The New York Hospital, for the year 1899, now before 
 me ... I read under the heading: 
 
 'STANDING COMMITTEES OF THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS. 
 Executive. 
 
 William Warner Hoppin, Henry W. De Forest, El- 
 bridge T. Gerry, Edmund D. Randolph, Hermann H. Cam- 
 mann, George G. Haven, George S. Bowdoin, George G. 
 DeWitt, Edward King, Augustus D. Juilliard, William 
 Alexander Duer, Howard Townsend. 
 
 Blooming dale. 
 
 Frederick D. Tappan, Chairman; Richard Trimble, 
 Waldron Post Brown, Philip Schuyler, James William 
 Beekman, Thomas H. Barber. 
 
 On Law. 
 
 Elbridge T. Gerry, Henry W. De Forest, George G. 
 DeWitt. 
 
 Real Estate. 
 
 Hermann H. Cammann, Chairman ; James O. Sheldon, 
 Waldron Post Brown, George S. Bowdoin, Edward King. 
 
 On Nominations. 
 
 Elbridge T. Gerry, Philip Schuyler, Edmund D. Ran- 
 dolph.
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 The President, Vice-President and Treasurer are ex- 
 officio members of all committees. 
 
 . . . Reading David H. King, Jr., as a misprint for 
 Edward King, or vice versa, the above committees contain 
 the full list of 'Governors' of 'Bloomingdale' except Messrs. 
 Sheppard Gandy, President; Theodorus B. Woolsey, Vice- 
 President; J. Edward Simmons, Treasurer; Henry W. 
 Crane, Secretary; Fordham Morris, George F. Baker, and 
 Joseph Hodges Choate."* 
 
 Surely as gilded a set of rascals as ever glared a reader 
 in the eye! 
 
 Surely a noteworthy congeries of rogues, surely. 
 
 Said gay birds of gilded plumage plucked us neatly of 
 some twenty thousand dollars in coldest cash, mulcted from 
 us as we lay helpless in a cell, at the hands of Stanford 
 White since gone to a higher tribunal and later, by his 
 brother-in-law, Prescott Hall Butler, also dead. The latter 
 was in the interesting position of being our "guide, philoso- 
 pher and friend," known in law as "committee of the per- 
 
 *Pages 242-243 "F. Y. B.," etc., aforesaid: "Taken from The So- 
 ciety of the New York Hospital,' I27th Annual Report, for the year 
 1897: 
 
 GOVERNORS. 
 
 Sheppard Gandy, President ; Theodorus B. Woolsey, Vice-Presi- 
 dent; J. Edward Simmons, Treasurer; Joseph H. Choate, William 
 Warner Hoppin, Elbridge T. Gerry. 
 
 In the Annual Report of the said institution for the year 1899, we 
 find the Board of Governors composed of the same members with the 
 exception that Howard Townsend and George F. Baker take the places 
 of Cornelius N. Bliss and Francis Lynde Stetson."
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 son and estate of the incompetent" your very humble ser- 
 vant appointed at the solicitation of the Chanler family, 
 male and female, for the reason that said Butler was a law- 
 partner of Joseph Hodges Choate, Sr., ex-Ambassador 
 to the Court of St. James, and very much a member of the 
 "Board of Governors" of "Bloomingdale." It requires no 
 very profound thought to discern why the Chanters, male 
 and female, chose Butler. Furthermore. The Chanlers 
 desired besides glutting a spite secretly nursed against us 
 for nine years from June I4th, 1888 the date of a cer- 
 tain wedding to March I3th, 1897, when we were arrested 
 by two plainclothesmen from Mulberry Street Police Sta- 
 tion while sojourning quietly in lodgings at a hotel in 
 New York and escorted without any undue argument upon 
 our part politely and quietly to "Bloomingdale" for life 
 the Chanlers, male and female, saw a chance to make sev- 
 eral million "honest" pennies apiece to put it mildly by 
 running us in for life and, upon our demise, appropriating 
 our million and a half on the ground that we were a lunatic 
 and that any will made by us was null it having leaked 
 out that we had made the University of Virginia and other 
 Educational Institutions our beneficiaries under our will 
 since the Chanlers are all millionaires and don't really need 
 our money. 
 
 They therefore chose a man like Butler who was in a 
 position to benefit financially himself from the annual heavy 
 bribe of five thousand two hundred dollars a year not
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 counting extras which we were charged for a two-roomed 
 cell, and a thirty-dollar-a-month Irish keeper, on a purely 
 vegetarian and "teetotal" diet, and paying extra for prac- 
 tically every thing we eat, for the good and sufficient rea- 
 son that the food in "Bloomingdale" was either badly 
 cooked, adulterated, or decayed, and w r e bought food out- 
 side "the institution" and had it shipped in. 
 
 Ex- Ambassador Choate "being a beneficiary under the 
 Trust" as we lawyers say which, being interpreted, 
 means that he, very presumably indeed, duly received his 
 share of "rake off" from our good five thousand two hun- 
 dred per, not counting extras. For "Bloomingdale," false- 
 ly so called, is no philanthropic enterprise by a very large 
 majority. Nor is it a State Institution, but purely and sim- 
 ply a private money-making concern of the good old sort so 
 frequently found hidden away in New York. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that Butler was going to turn 
 loose a star-easy-mark, a goose that laid the five thousand 
 and more golden eggs on the counter of the hospitable Hos- 
 pital of "Bloomingdale" per annum for life he fondly 
 hoped. There would be nothing smacking of business 
 principles in that. And a standing motto of the Chanler 
 family is, "There is no sentiment in business," in which sen- 
 timent hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers join hands 
 heartily with the Chanlers. Hence the selection of said de- 
 funct gentleman, by the loving brothers and sisters of the 
 author of "Scorpio," for the latter's gaoler in conjunc-
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 tion with ex-Ambassador Choate, Elbridge T. Gerry, et id 
 hoc genus omne "bunch." 
 
 We are well aware that our frank tearing away of the 
 veil of respectability from the hoary visages of Messrs. 
 Choate, Gerry and their confederates in crime as afore- 
 said will meet with hems and haws and possibly frowns 
 and muttered growls from the "little brothers of the rich" 
 who spittle-lick rich men for the love of the thing. We 
 shall be surprised if certain newspapers in New York 
 controlled by the friends and business associates of "The 
 Forty Thieves of 'Blooming dale' " as we dubbed the band 
 of marauders headed by Messrs. Choate and Gerry in "F. 
 Y. B.," etc., seven years ago, without ever hearing the 
 slightest peep of remonstrance for the above rough hand- 
 ling by the author of "Scorpio" from his victims afore- 
 said; we shall be surprised if the friendly, allied, or pos- 
 sibly, subsidized, newspapers in New York will care to say 
 much about "Scorpio No. i," if said papers even care to say 
 much about "Scorpio" ; since we have heard no hint or sign 
 from said papers since sending them "Scorpio" for review. 
 But, as has been observed before, "Scorpio" has come to 
 stay, and no amount of hostility upon the part of a news- 
 paper, nor any number of newspapers, can hold "Scorpio" 
 down, for several reasons which we shall now in winding 
 up our Prologue state. 
 
 Primo. Life is getting more and more complicated, 
 and therefore more and more difficult, and therefore more
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 wretchedly unhappy, as the years roll on. Look at one 
 single question : Labour. What are you going to say about 
 that? Look at the strikes the world over, born from an 
 increasing sense of the injustice of the distribution of the 
 good things of life, and a growing knowledge upon the 
 working man's part of the Moloch-like nature of the em- 
 ployer of labour, from the very necessity of business, whose 
 motto is "Business is business." 
 
 Such being the case, so seething with unrest is the in- 
 dustrial world, the world over, that all proved instances of 
 dishonesty, hypocrisy, and crime, upon the part of the very 
 rich, help the cause of the poor man, by bringing over re- 
 cruits to his standard from the heretofore indifferent poor, 
 or even well-to-do. Therefore such instances after be- 
 ing proved true are readily seized by the friends and lead- 
 ers of the poor in their increasingly deadly, increasingly 
 internecine struggle with the greedy rich, and used as am- 
 munition by their orators on the stump to arouse the indif- 
 ferent to the state of the world. 
 
 To take but one brief but momentous instance starting 
 right in "little old New York" once more. 
 
 The instance in question is the revelations re the secret 
 conduct of Life Insurance Societies a few years ago, which 
 raised such a stink in the "Equitable" to take but one in- 
 stance of a blackeyed institution, hitherto among the haugh- 
 tiest of the haughty.
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 What a death blow that was to certain Insurance mag- 
 nates, to be sure! 
 
 What a revelation as to New York business ethics for 
 a fact! 
 
 And yet how tame, colourless and mild that scandal 
 stands beside the one "Scorpio" has taken upon itself to run 
 to earth and sting to death! 
 
 We allude to the White Slavery practiced openly in 
 New York under the guise of Lunacy Procedure: supported 
 by the Courts, supported by the Church in that the 
 Church is silent under proved charges there-anent sup- 
 ported by the Legal Profession, supported by the Medical 
 Profession, supported by Finance supported by Wall 
 Street and finally, supported by Society, known as the 
 "Four Hundred." 
 
 As we observed in "F. Y. B.," etc., "Bloomingdale" is 
 the "Bastile" of the "Four Hundred." 
 
 The only people who do not support and hold up the 
 arms of this iniquity, are the plain people are the poor. 
 
 And it is to the plain people, to the poor that "Scorpio" 
 is going to tell the tale of "Bloomingdale." 
 
 The Federation of Labor would like to know all about 
 it. 
 
 The Industrial Workers of the World would like to 
 know all about it. 
 
 The Socialists would like to know all about it. 
 
 And before very long, they shall know all about it.
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 Even Anarchy is palpably preferable to organised, pro- 
 tected, intrenched and triumphant perjury, robbery, and 
 murder. 
 
 For Anarchy aims at freedom from organizations of 
 any kind interfering with the personal freedom of the in- 
 dividual: and we have clearly shown above supported as 
 we are by the Court Records aforesaid, spread at large on 
 the pages of "Four Years Behind the Bars," etc. that per- 
 jury, robbery, and murder are thoroughly organised, not 
 only on the East Side in New York, but on Fifth Avenue. 
 
 In closing our quiet Prologue, we beg leave to caution 
 the hostiles not to lie about us, or we shall so dub them in 
 "Scorpio No. 2," due to come out on or about September 
 ist, next. We allude specifically to objecting to being 
 dubbed a friend or supporter of Anarchy, simply because 
 we have had the perspicacity and courage to point out that 
 there is something worse than Anarchy, and that that some- 
 thing now occupies the seats of the mighty in the metrop- 
 olis of this allegedly civilized, allegedly humane and Chris- 
 tian country. We would notify these "cubs" that we are 
 a pillar of the law, not an Anarchist. Even a cub-reporter 
 should know enough to know that a recognized law-writer, 
 such as we will be found to be by anyone who can read, who 
 will turn to the back of this modest little book and gaze upon 
 the laurels showered upon us by those "in the know" among 
 the Law Reviews of this great nation re "The Lunacy Law 
 of the World" as we were about to observe, even a cub,
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 an unlicked cub at that, should have enough gumption 
 enough go-in-out-of-the-rain, to know that a law-writer is 
 no Anarchist. For Anarchy means no law. 
 
 Now, to turn at last, to the far more congenial task 
 of discussing poetry. 
 
 At the very outset, we wish to tender our sincere 
 thanks to those newspapers' critics, whose criticisms are ap- 
 pended herein, for the real encouragement and satisfaction 
 their appreciation was to us. We are well aware that the 
 launching of "Scorpio" was a rather risky venture from 
 the fact that it was so liable to be misunderstood, from *hc 
 more or less newness of the point of view of the writer. 
 
 Having discharged gladly our debt of thanks, we next 
 approach a topic which, perforce, must have raised its Gor- 
 gon-head the very instant a critic saw that the writer had 
 brought out, in so short a time, another book of sonnets. 
 
 The name of said Gorgon, of course, is overproduc- 
 tion : writing one's self out. 
 
 We hasten to say that there is no apparent danger of 
 that for the following reasons : 
 
 First : The writer has on hand some five hundred son- 
 nets done as follows. Three hundred and fifty sonnets were 
 written in "Bloomingdale" between the years 1898 and 
 1900, inclusive. Since that time, the writer was so driven 
 and harried by law suits which he himself had to supervise 
 and do absolutely all the briefing for, that no matter how 
 much he may adore the Muses, he has not actually had time
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 during the thirteen years that intervene since his happy es- 
 cape from "Bloomingdale" to write more than some one 
 hundred and fifty sonnets. 
 
 The fact that he had some five hundred sonnets in 
 stock emboldened the writer to announce the unprecedented 
 undertaking of bringing out a Poetical Quarterly. Lord 
 Byron intended to do the same that was the germ of the 
 plan with the writer but his untimely death prevented. 
 The writer had intended to limit the number to twenty-five 
 sonnets per quarter half of which were to be new sonnets 
 and half taken from the stock of some five hundred al- 
 ready done. But on Easter Monday last, the 24th of April, 
 an event occurred alluded to in the Appendix, at its proper 
 place which started apparently such an output of sonnets 
 that he at once saw that he must modify and change the 
 original sonnet-schedule, so to speak. He therefore de- 
 cided to increase the number of sonnets each quarter to 
 fifty, of which as many as desired should be charged to the 
 new account of sonnets, and not more than half a dozen 
 sonnets should be drawn upon from the old stock of some 
 five hundred sonnets, aforesaid, already done, and moss- 
 grown with age, so to speak. The consequence was, that 
 of the fifty-three sonnets composing "Scorpio No. i" forty- 
 seven were done since the 24th of month-before-last, or 
 within six weeks from to-day, the 6th of June. 
 
 Said forty-seven sonnets are with few exceptions 
 placed in the order of their birth, in "Scorpio No. I."
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 Concerning said sonnets the writer has only this to 
 say in taking leave for ninety days of the reviewer. 
 
 If the sonnet was the key with which Shakspeare "un- 
 locked his heart," it is with the writer the key to the cup- 
 board containing ointment to soothe the aches and pains 
 caused by a life of incessant warfare, for nearly seventeen 
 years, against crime; insolent, barefaced, buttressed; strut- 
 ting more brazenly than a painted "protected" harlot on the 
 arm of her "fancy man" ; in which he has been utterly un- 
 supported by press, pulpit, or public, but NOT by the Law 
 Reviewers aforesaid, to whom he feels undying gratitude. 
 
 Such being the case, the writer goes to a sonnet for 
 comfort the moment his heart begins to ache, or the instant 
 his brain begins to ache figuratively speaking, this last 
 over the perplexity of an existence brought about by a Su- 
 preme Being he firmly believes whose ways are "past 
 finding out." Hence the intimacy of so many of the son- 
 nets; hence their variety of subject, as well as variety of 
 treatment. From grave to gay, from serious to jocose, 
 from sacred to profane, is the order of the day with the 
 writer's Muse to use a very old-fashioned word. 
 
 The writer is absolutely and utterly alone in the world. 
 He has not a blood relative in the world who has not 
 "flopped" to the side of the upper dog. This is not said in 
 a tone of complaint, but purely and simply upon honour 
 by way of explanation as touching the aforesaid intimacy 
 of the sonnets and their tumultous so to speak variety.
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 Before thrown into a madhouse cell for life the writer 
 could not write anything in prose or verse, in spite of sev- 
 eral years of steady, intelligent, and most determined ef- 
 fort more effective than a cheque. A cheque if good 
 is very effective of course but it is hardly literature. 
 Upon being laid by the heels upon a false, bogus, and per- 
 jured, charge of insanity, the writer set about him to im- 
 prove his vocabulary which never had been meagre by 
 looking up in "Stormonth's" Unabridged Dictionary the 
 origin of every word that struck him, and whose etymology 
 was unfamiliar to him. He jotted down the date of the 
 observation every time on the margin of the page. One 
 night a year almost to a day from the date of his arrest, 
 he found a rhyme for the first time in his life, practically, 
 dancing in his head. He smiled at it and jotted it down. 
 He smiled because there was a laugh in it. No sooner was 
 said laugh jotted down than another presented itself. To 
 cut a long story short, half a dozen rhymes presented 
 themselves to him that night. All were duly recorded. 
 The next night the same thing occurred, and the next and 
 the next, until he had written not on the margin of "Stor- 
 month's" Unabridged, however some one thousand 
 rhymes. He then started to cramp said rhymes which he 
 had allowed to spread at will, to as many as some eighteen 
 or twenty syllables to a line, into the classical English 
 length of ten or eleven syllables. 
 
 Said rhymes he had held down to couplets, in ninety
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 per cent, of the cases, varied by triplets, and rarely, qua- 
 trains. 
 
 Said rhymes had always rhymed closely no matter 
 how uncouth, unwieldly, or barbaric, their metre. 
 
 Under said new regime, he wrote some one thousand 
 couplets, of the said classic length. 
 
 Once started, he never deflected from said classic rule 
 in a single instance. His barbaric lines had never been less 
 than ten or eleven syllables, though often nearly twice that 
 length. 
 
 One night in August, 1898, he felt a desire to attempt 
 to write a sonnet. He had never attempted, or dreampt of 
 attempting such a thing. He never had any idea that he 
 could do so difficult and complicated a feat in verse. He 
 had contented himself with thinking of writing couplets 
 all his life when the mood seized him. He therefore 
 went about the task in something strongly resembling fear 
 and trembling. To his surprise he "pulled it off," so to 
 speak, after about an hour's intense mental effort. That 
 sonnet is in "Scorpio No. I." It is entitled "Words- 
 worth." From that memorable to him August night, to 
 the following Xmas, he wrote some fifteen sonnets 
 among them the sonnets "Midsummer" and "The Rubicon 
 of the Unknown." From January, 1900, to Thanksgiving 
 Eve the day of his escape he wrote some three hundred 
 and thirty-five sonnets. So much for how the Muse pre- 
 sented herself to the author of "Scorpio."
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 In closing, the author begs leave to observe that it was 
 with extreme reluctance that he withdrew the veil from the 
 matters touched upon in the present Prologue. The proof 
 of that is in the contrast in length and tone between this 
 Prologue and the preceding one. But to avoid being bored 
 by reading possibly well-meant, but highly officious, and as 
 highly dull suggestions, touching the illegality of poetry in 
 an alleged free country as hinted already when his news 
 bureaus send him future clippings if there are any the 
 author conceived it the part of wisdom to stamp upon the 
 hissing head of the little snakes that try to make out that 
 thought is less free in the United States than in Russia. Fu- 
 ture Prologues he hopes may be as care free and debonair 
 as the Prologue to "Scorpio" itself. 
 
 One last item, and then au revoir. 
 
 There is a certain series of sonnets within entitled, 
 "The Rosary." 
 
 Now, touching said "Rosary," the author has this to 
 say: 
 
 He is no more responsible for the sentiments issuing 
 from the lips of the "Solitary of En-gedi" in whose mouth 
 he puts said sonnets, by specifically stating that the series 
 is a series of "Dramatic Sonnets" by which he meant lit- 
 tle plays, little soliloquies than Shakspeare to use a very 
 awful example, a very awe-inspiring example was charge- 
 able with the villainy of lago. 
 
 6-6-1913.
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 June 10, 1913. 
 
 A word in addition and just on the very eve of going 
 to press to hostiles in the press both near and far so far 
 as Boston and so near as Richmond is rendered advisable 
 by two clippings from the former city and a newspaper 
 from the latter, which latter was published this very day. 
 The falling from grace upon the part of said hostiles con- 
 sists in the high crime and misdemeanour when dealing 
 with a poem of garbling and mutilating the verse with a 
 view to discredit it, or its author, in public estimation, as a 
 poet. This is about the most cowardly as well as the dull- 
 est, and meanest way of attacking a literary enemy. Lack- 
 ing the courage or intelligence to originate anything tell- 
 ing or strong; the ingenuity of these little creatures is fo- 
 cussed upon picking out or rather creating flaws in the 
 verse which do not otherwise exist by omitting lines 
 which elucidate the lines the said little creatures cite; or 
 leaving out the second and closing line to a couplet in a 
 sonnet. 
 
 In Boston the hostiles erred in the former particular. 
 
 In Richmond the hostile erred in the latter particular. 
 
 Now, criticism of our verse is the last thing we would 
 avoid hostile criticism is as interesting provided it is 
 more or less accurate, true and informed though far from
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 being as pleasant and agreeable, of course, as criticism which 
 is not hostile. But we strenuously object to the action of 
 the Boston hostiles which implied that the only reason we 
 got the better of our keeper in a life-and-death struggle in 
 a cell in "Bloomingdale" falsely so called, was because when 
 he attempted to strangle the author of "Scorpio" the lat- 
 ter's throat proved too strong for him. It was not alone 
 the strength of our throat that saved our life in said en- 
 counter. Said result of the hostile's was brought about by 
 suppressing those lines, or line, of the sonnet which con- 
 tained the secret of our victory. 
 
 We as strenuously object to the action of the Rich- 
 mond hostile which squeezed the very life out of a sonnet 
 called "Three Flies," published in its issue of June loth, 
 1913, by leaving out the last line of the sonnet, and ipso 
 facto of the couplet. 
 
 There was no possible question about lack of space 
 which evidently was the case in a recent issue of the New 
 York "World" evening edition which published some 
 half dozen of our sonnets, and was forced from lack of 
 space at the bottom of the last column to cut a sonnet 
 down to two quatrains, or eight lines, instead of three 
 quatrains, and a closing couplet, making fourteen lines in 
 all. Now there are millions of people who would be de- 
 lighted to squeeze the life out of three flies and three mil- 
 lion flies for that matter, if they had the time and accur- 
 acy of "swat." But that is an aside, palpably. A poet has
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 a perfect right to select any, not improper, topic on earth as 
 subject of a sonnet. And people who are at all widely 
 read know that prisoners in dungeons have time and again 
 made friends of, and even tamed far more dangerous 
 and therefore objectionable creatures than flies, to wit: 
 spiders, and rats. The bite of either of which is liable un- 
 der given conditions to cause prompt and painful death. 
 
 Therefore, why should the author during his long 
 and hideous imprisonment in that Hell-upon-earth, a mad- 
 house cell not be permitted to find what distraction he 
 might in the gay evolutions of three flies? 
 
 The cause of the hostility of one of the Boston papers 
 is unknown possibly because the author of "Scorpio" 
 likes the South that of the second is a libel suit. 
 
 The cause of the hostility of the Richmond hostile is 
 very well known, but for certain reasons the author does 
 not care to drag it out of its various closets. He will do 
 so, promptly, however, upon the recurrence of unfriendly 
 acts by said paper. 
 
 Said paper has for some time been getting nastier and 
 nastier in re the author of "Scorpio" in a cautious fashion. 
 Thus. When the break between said paper and ourselves 
 first began some four years ago we noticed that little 
 disagreeable slurs were secretively slipped into otherwise 
 highly friendly, and prominently placed first page, top 
 line stories about our various and sundry, more or less 
 exciting doings. Exciting not from choice, necessarily,
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 but dire and grim necessity the Gillard incident, for in- 
 stance cited in the New York "Tribune" article in Appen- 
 dix. We approached the proper authorities, on the paper, 
 in no uncertain terms, in the premises, and a most desirable 
 and prompt reform was the result. Thereupon, in place 
 of getting good places in the paper whenever the whirl 
 of Fate's wheel brought up more news re the author of 
 "Scorpio" or even decent places decent positions we 
 were stuck next to the most objectionable as we remem- 
 ber it sort of advertisements, such as cures, as intimate as 
 they are disagreeable ; advertisements of female underwear, 
 fully displayed; or other advertisements of the class of 
 "Rough-on-Rats. " 
 
 We again, but far more jocularly expostulated with 
 the taste which sandwiched a man of the austere tastes of 
 the author of "Scorpio," between cures for emerods and 
 ladies' drawers but, alas! without avail. 
 
 We do not court notice from any newspaper. Those 
 desirous of reviewing "Scorpio No. i," "No. 2," etc., etc., 
 we shall be very pleased indeed to hear from as above de- 
 scribed, re reviewers. But we demand, in no uncertain 
 tones, to be let alone, when the newspaper notice is merely 
 intended as a slur which is malicious, but just short of an 
 action for libel. 
 
 Our motto originated by ourselves is: "Leave Me 
 Alone"; which has for crest the figure of a grizzly bear, 
 walking quietly along.
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 This we have had carved on a large blood-stone, by a 
 capable lapidary, and employ rarely, but upon occasion, 
 when an unusually important envelope requires extra secur- 
 ity. 
 
 This is to signify that unless a party, or parties, is, or 
 are, desirous of trouble, said party or parties, leave us 
 alone. If they want trouble we shall as readily accommo- 
 date them as we accommodated said Gillard.* 
 
 J. A. C. 
 
 "The Merry Mills," 
 
 Cobham, Albemarle Co., 
 
 Virginia, 
 
 June 10, 1913.
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 The "Richmond Virginian" 
 
 Richmond, Virginia, May SI, 1913 
 
 Ethics of New York Alienists 
 
 When John Armstrong Chaloner said he was afraid 
 to trust himself in New York State because he believed all 
 the alienists there could be bribed to send him back to 
 Bloomingdale everybody thought he was using the empty 
 words of prejudice. Recent developments indicate that he 
 had substantial basis for his opinion. Dr. Russell, official 
 alienist and keeper of the insane, seems to have considered 
 and discussed the question of a $25,000 bribe to release 
 Harry Thaw with the tranquil philosophy of a business 
 man going over a business proposition. He did not knock 
 in the head the person proposing that he violate his official 
 and professional oath and his obligations to the State and 
 his own honor. He did not even report the case and de- 
 mand prosecution of the tempter. His conduct was extra- 
 ordinary, to say the least ; and, taken in connection with the 
 contrary and contradictory swearing of other eminent New 
 York insanity experts, gives an unfortunate idea of the 
 ethics of that special branch of medicine in that particular 
 locality.
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 The "Journal" 
 
 Syracuse, New York, June 11, 1913 
 
 Encourage the Philanthropist 
 
 We hope Justice Giegerich of the Supreme Court will 
 pass favorably upon the application of John Armstrong 
 Chaloner, brother of Louis Stuyvesant Chanler, for an in- 
 crease of his allowance from $17,000 to $33,000. It is not 
 because we are interested in exposing the family skeleton, 
 for that is not the purpose of the request. 
 
 Chaloner wants to benefit the State and his use of the 
 extra money, he declares, will be for that purpose. His ex- 
 perience in an asylum should qualify him to speak of the 
 care of insane, and the defects of present laws. He says 
 it has and he is determined to begin a crusade of reform if 
 the court will let him get more of his fortune of $1,500,000. 
 That is why we particularly wish him well, for if there is 
 room for beneficial legislation in existing law of any nature, 
 let's have it, especially if some one else is willing to spend 
 his own money to prove to the State that he is right in his 
 contentions. 
 
 Such steps as Chaloner wishes to take, if they are as 
 high minded as he says they are, should be encouraged.
 
 Sonnet One 
 
 A Poet-Caravan 
 
 The sonnet's lines are mark'd by skeletons 
 
 The bleaching bones of poet-caravan 
 
 The blistering carcasses of earth's weak sons 
 
 Who strive to sonnet and so seldom can. 
 
 As o'er her solemn plain doth rise the moon 
 
 And on these bleaching bones her beams doth shed 
 
 One almost fancies one can hear a moan 
 
 A mutter'd murmur from the martyr'd dead. 
 
 The air doth pulsate with the summer's breath 
 
 And Nature's throbbing heart the stillness holds 
 
 Whilest the solemnity that ushers death 
 
 The spirit awes and all the soul enfolds. 
 
 On the horizon howls a shy jackal 
 
 Th' Orient's glamour thus is over all.
 
 2 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Two 
 
 "All the World's a Stage" 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 As fro' the tiny acorn springs the oak 
 'Neath whose umbrageous leaves and tow'ring limbs 
 Canopys the ox when fro' the yoke 
 Cessation from fierce toil sweet sunset brings : 
 So from small cause springs mighty consequence 
 And actions that do ring the world around 
 In chain of change of close-linked sequence 
 Homogeniously taut as cable round. 
 Thus work the Gods in this our seething world 
 As They gaze downward from their cloudy couch 
 At Their dread touch men's passions' waves are curl'd 
 Yet nought in Nature doth the Cause avouch ! 
 Thus move men blindly in a maze of chance 
 Mere puppets on a stage, whom the Gods make dance.
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Three 
 
 The Life-Dance 
 
 Tis how we tread said dance, close watcheth God- 
 That dread mysterious Being from afar 
 While all things bow to Whose Olympian nod 
 From falling sparrow to movement of a star. 
 In us the heart from Him the circumstance 
 That doth each heart enshroud as graveyard pall 
 'Fining the movements of said fateful dance 
 As an elastic mesh confines a ball. 
 The jolts and jars, the horrid shocks and blows 
 The griefs and insults that most souls do meet 
 Are motions measur'd out by One-who-knows 
 'Tis ours the task to handle well our feet. 
 Just "face the music" and by conscience tread 
 And when the music's fast don't lose your head.
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Four 
 
 A Magic Crucible 
 
 The sonnet is a magic crucible 
 
 In which I throw a thought and watch it melt. 
 
 Gaze to see to what it is reducible 
 
 What are its elements what's true what's felt. 
 
 Within this magic vat which molten seethes 
 
 Bubbles and boils in waves of fiery heat 
 
 Rising and falling even as if it breathes 
 
 As tho' beneath their surface heart did beat 
 
 Within this grim retort all things are thrown 
 
 Nations and actions countries, customs all 
 
 And by its trying is their nature known 
 
 The gold swift sift from dross, from honey gall. 
 
 So, in this life, doth Deity try man 
 
 And as his passions seethe, his heart doth scan.
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Five 
 
 Germania 
 
 (i) 
 
 A model for the world is Germany. 
 There character and brains go hand in hand 
 There patriotism join'd to industry 
 Conquer the handicap of non-fertile land. 
 With neither Colonies nor vast domain 
 With neither mines nor riches in her breast 
 Her teeming merchantmen plough every main 
 Her whirring factories do never rest. 
 And this has all been done in twenty years 
 In that brief span Germania leads the world 
 Before that time she lagg'd behind her peers 
 Before that time her commerce' sails were furl'd. 
 At the Kaiser's call Germania's commerce strove 
 And sprang in air like Pallas from front of Jove !
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Six 
 
 Germania 
 
 (ii) 
 
 E'en greater miracle than this was seen 
 
 When her Emperor call'd for Men-0f-war 
 
 To challenge the empire of the world's Sea-Queen 
 
 Who rules the waves from her proud Neptune-car. 
 
 Britannia smil'd and curl'd her lip in scorn 
 
 Britannia laugh'd and loud the welkin rang! 
 
 When lo! like magic were German "Dreadnoughts" born 
 
 And in deadly squadrons on the waters sprang! 
 
 No laughter now is heard from Albion's shore 
 
 No sneer is now upon Britannia's lip 
 
 But carking care is there for evermore 
 
 Lest dread Germania smite her thigh and hip. 
 
 By self-sacrifice and debt was this end won 
 
 A load borne bravely by every Teuton son.
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Seven 
 
 Britannia 
 
 Think not from this that I am Britain's foe 
 
 I'd love to see our countries fast allied! 
 
 But as thro' the world I softly lonely go 
 
 All countrie's virtues shall be truly cried. 
 
 My Muse is History herself in verse 
 
 Impartial, accurate, high-minded, true 
 
 It is Her joy all good deeds to rehearse 
 
 Her duty to make rogues and rascals rue. 
 
 Good actions are not bounded by frontiers 
 
 Nor ideas bounded by a non-seen line 
 
 There never yet was limit set for tears 
 
 Nor yet for suffering by any clime. 
 
 The world I scan and measure then enhearse 
 
 After I've scann'd and measur'd well my verse.
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Eight 
 
 Columbia 
 
 Some mighty lessons in these facts are found 
 For my great country that vast land of wealth 
 Where love of country is today foul drown'd 
 In one mad feverish frenzied rush for pelf. 
 Two battle-ships a year we may not have 
 Because, forsooth, some Solons are so mean 
 That all appropriations they must shave 
 To fat the Pension-List that hag obscene ! 
 The wily Japanese are at our gate 
 These crafty Orientals lust our Isles 
 'Fore e'er we know Fate's voice will cry "Too late ! 
 To crush with cannon daring Nippon's wiles." 
 Columbia, vote the warships ! Rise as one man ! 
 Let the Star Spangled Banner awe Japan.
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Nine 
 
 That Pension-Lift 
 
 The foulest "graft" in all the world today 
 
 Is that same Pension-List so help me G-d! 
 
 That sounds strong but reverently it I say 
 
 Tis the fattest graft e'er sprang from any sod ! 
 
 A list that lengthens as the vet'rans die 
 
 A list that lifts itself by its boot-straps 
 
 A list that largely is a living lie 
 
 A chopping-block for ev'ry sane man's taps ! 
 
 When will the people rise and prick this thing 
 
 This bubble blown by politicians' breath 
 
 Which makes the Nations with raucous laughter ring 
 
 And makes the frugal patriot sweat to death ! 
 
 An honest Pension-List's a Nation's pride 
 
 Not such an one as all men do deride.
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Ten 
 
 Sans a Wedding Garment 
 
 What business is it of the saucy Japs 
 
 These scheming bold marauders of the East 
 
 If Columbia their greedy knuckles raps 
 
 For coming uninvited to our feast. 
 
 A feast she spreads to all of the white race 
 
 But draws the line, perforce, sharp on the East. 
 
 No yellow face thereat may find a place 
 
 To there intrude there's no pretext, the least. 
 
 The Golden Slope is well within her rights 
 
 And tho' Japan re land doth eke the same 
 
 She talks of war, and the drowsy East affrights 
 
 With the bluster that she throws into her game. 
 
 Let Japan cross swords with Columbia, but dare 
 
 And we'll blow these Orientals in the air.
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Eleven 
 
 The Queen of the Pacific 
 
 That is our destiny most manifest! 
 
 With our vast coasts knit by th' Panama Canal 
 
 To shrug or doubt it is an empty jest 
 
 Untimely joke as ill-starr'd as banal. 
 
 In time this Nation's shipping will be vast 
 
 The market of the world 's the teeming East 
 
 By th' Almighty have Columbia's lines been cast! 
 
 For she's port for peoples all from great to least 
 
 When that day dawns her post strategical 
 
 With coaling stations i' th' then free Philippines 
 
 Makes her the mistress strong as logical 
 
 From Far Cathay to where the Cape sea gull screams ! 
 
 Britannia clearly rules all other seas 
 
 Columbia the Pacific, if you please.
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Twelve 
 
 The Fountain of a Hundred Jets 
 
 That is this Nation's nationality ! 
 
 In us the fountains of the world find play 
 
 Pouring their talent, sinew, quality 
 
 Into one dazzling iridescent ray. 
 
 A hundred faucets this magic fountain boasts 
 
 A hundred different jets of ray intense 
 
 Playing on Columbia's mounts, plains, valleys, coasts 
 
 A fecundating spray rich as immense ! 
 
 "The Promised Land" for all the world are we 
 
 For whom their own home has too narrow grown 
 
 They bring with them their storied history, 
 
 The legends of their land we make our own ! 
 
 A mighty future for my race I see 
 
 Once it o'ercomes its present crudity.
 
 SONNETS 13 
 
 Sonnet Thirteen 
 
 Salut Aux Aieux* 
 
 (To Ancestors.) 
 
 Not Anglo-Saxon I but Anglo-Celt 
 
 A Welshman I would have you understand 
 
 In seventeen ten my forbears "trekk'd the veldt" 
 
 The rolling "roaring forties" and made land. 
 
 Good Anglo-Saxon blood runs in my veins 
 
 And good hot Scotch and good Scotch-Irish too 
 
 My genealogy here clear explains 
 
 That the British lion "quarter'd" springs in view. 
 
 In view now dance the lilies of fair France 
 
 Charlotte de Corday's relative am I ! 
 
 O'er Time's horizon then doth grim advance 
 
 An ancestor from thoughtful Germany. 
 
 Bold Peter Stuyvesant too speaks thro' me 
 
 So in me eight nationalities you see.
 
 14 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Fourteen 
 
 An Echo to Walt Whitman's "Barbaric Yawp" 
 
 Bold old Walt Whitman ! Good galumphing Walt ! 
 As dry-nurse took I thee in poesy ! 
 Not for melody for thy brave verse doth halt 
 And sans rhyme or rhythm doth its grim weird dree, 
 i But for freedom first of all God's gifts most fair 
 The freedom of eagles when they soar for prey 
 Columbia's eagle monarch of the air! 
 In following thee their flight did I essay. 
 Rugged as granite with a heart as soft 
 As ever casketed fair woman's breast 
 From carpenter's bench thy thoughts soar'd aloft 
 Till thy name belts the world North, South, East, and West ! 
 For freedom of thought took I thee sans peer! 
 As master of melody follow'd Shakspeare.
 
 SONNETS 15 
 
 Sonnet Fifteen 
 
 The Tricolore 
 
 Mathematics Poetry Philosophy. 
 Pythagoras Homer Aristotle. 
 "The dark backward and abysm of time." 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Now by sines and cosines, tangents and cotangs ! 
 
 As my collegiate feats I now cull o'er 
 
 A rosy auriole o'er th' dark backward hangs 
 
 And youth gleams glorious as the Tricolore ! 
 
 The fairy glamour o' the Grecian Isles 
 
 That land of heroes and old poesie 
 
 The strident roar of nowadays beguiles 
 
 And steeps our garish day in tints all rosy. 
 
 Those joyous marchings onwards towards a goal 
 
 As vague indefinite as 'twas remote 
 
 E'er dread Experience had seared the soul 
 
 And show'd most sunny sunbeams float a mote. i 
 
 Said sweet experience I now gaze upon 
 
 And with fresh courage buckle my armour on.
 
 16 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Sixteen 
 
 The Watch-Towers of Liberty* 
 
 Ye watch-towers of Liberty the Press 
 
 A subject for debate do I now raise 
 
 And its solution upon you urgent press 
 
 For than me the press no one doth louder praise. 
 
 'Tis 'gainst your custom universal wide 
 
 That when a rival doth any one commend 
 
 At once ! Change ! Presto ! Each doth that one deride 
 
 And 'gainst him lightemngs-fnlininant are penn'd! 
 
 This is not just, nor right nor generous 
 
 This is not worthy of your mighty sphere 
 
 At times the habit waxeth murderous 
 
 See Philada. "Inquirer's" vile lying jeer. 
 
 Please note. This is no lecture, gentle Sirs 
 
 Merely suggestion which to my mind occurs.
 
 SONNETS 17 
 
 Sonnet Seventeen 
 
 The Syracuse "Foil-Standard" Orf* 
 
 The standard oil doth drip into thy ink ! 
 
 And honest printer's ink is foul'd thereby 
 
 And facts within thy columns made to blink 
 
 And Truth assume the vestments of a lie. 
 
 Are your presses oil'd with oil from Standard Oil ? 
 
 Your "Linotypes" with Standard Oil kept trim, 
 
 Do your rollers roll and give the right recoil 
 
 And all your wheels revolve their whirring hymn ? 
 
 If not, why hot dost thou attack my verse 
 
 And hand my sonnets over to the "Sun" ? 
 
 Because Rockefeller's crimes I true rehearse 
 
 And show how the score 'gainst that rogue doth uprun? 
 
 May the ghost of Horace Greely haunt your chair 
 
 And make you of foul prejudice beware.
 
 i8 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Eighteen 
 
 The Whipping PoSt 
 
 Houston, Texas, "Post," May 25, 1913. 
 
 " 'Scorpio' is a book of sonnets 'with a punch.' Written by John 
 Armstrong Chaloner, the man who is crazy in New York and sane in 
 Virginia. . . . While Mr. Chaloner's book was published six years 
 ago, it has just been sent out for review. Mr. Chaloner has a million 
 dollars, and, of course, could not speak freely until he had legally safe- 
 guarded his million from the vengeful rapacity of those whom his 
 verses might offend." 
 
 Our attention 's just been call'd to th' Houston "Post" 
 
 A "patent-insides" sheet of Houston, Tex. 
 
 Because "Scorpio" it seems doth rascals "roast" 
 
 Said fact said little "cross-roads-sheet" doth vex. 
 
 In a State like Texas which is part made up 
 
 Of citizens who 've fled from other climes 
 
 For fear lest they might be short-shrift "strung-up" 
 
 In expiation of their sundry crimes 
 
 It is but natural her libel laws 
 
 Should be about the very worst on earth 
 
 And render liable to th' law's grim claws 
 
 The writer who rich rascals doth un-earth. 
 
 In the Old Do.* and the "Old North"f where we roam 
 
 The truth is never libel in our sweet home ! 
 
 *The "Old Dominion" (Virginia). 
 
 f'The Old North State" (North Carolina).
 
 SONNETS 19 
 
 Sonnet Nineteen 
 
 A Panel-House 
 
 The Watch-Towers of Liberty the Press 
 
 Those mighty bulwarks against tyranny 
 
 Whose power for good doth all men deep impress 
 
 Some outposts have that won't stand scrutiny. 
 
 Instead of Watch-Towers these things are "dead-falls"- 
 
 Oubliette-dungeons of a panel-house! 
 
 To sweep whom the besom of destruction calls 
 
 As loudly 's cleanliness against a louse ! 
 
 By nature these are grinders of the poor 
 
 By nature these are toadies to the rich 
 
 And to tyranny and crime push wide the door 
 
 And for furtive murder have an eager itch. 
 
 Such an one is the "Times" of Brockton, Mass. 
 
 In Shoetown did said dark crime come to pass.
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Twenty 
 
 The FirSt Hewing of the World's Pioneers 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon weapon is the axe. 
 It hewed the Crescent down on the plain of Tours 
 When the Crescent's tide o'erwhelming seem'd to wax 
 And the prospects of the Cross were looking dour. 
 But that mighty hero, mighty Charles Martel 
 Drawing his hammer call'd on his Saxon bands 
 Whose bearded throats then push'd forth their battle-yell 
 And gleaming axes wav'd in brawny hands. 
 The dauntless Saracens they fell upon 
 As furious wild boar on encircling hounds 
 After fearful combat was that wild day won 
 And the Crescent push'd forever to her bounds 
 Than Saxon courage greater ne'er was seen 
 Christianity this day it saved, I ween.
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Twenty-one 
 
 Shaw Once More * 
 
 Tis an axe I use when I go after Shaw 
 
 When I go after him to shore him up, 
 
 Shut up 's pish-tush, pooh-pooh, tut-tut's hoarse haw-haw 
 
 And render him as harmless as a tup. 
 
 For I Shaw's master am he is my ram 
 
 My lusty, reeking ram, and sturdy tup 
 
 Shaw will deny this and attempt "flim-flam" 
 
 He always "flim-flams" when in hole he's stuck. 
 
 But he is my ram and I do prize him high 
 
 As ram I prize him and against him fence 
 
 I use him to "stand" for "Humbug" and "The Lie" 
 
 My two fat ewes in a poetic sense. 
 
 'Tis an axe I use when I go after Shaw 
 
 Against his hide aught else would be but straw.
 
 22 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Twenty-two 
 
 Shaw Macaw 
 
 The degradation of the English taste 
 
 In things dramatic doth bulk large today. 
 
 Her drama, in ideas, is a dreary waste 
 
 Bar two or three who can really write a play. 
 
 The proof of her degeneracy is Shaw 
 
 That Irish upstart and adventurer 
 
 That literary parvenu shrill macaw 
 
 Art's broken pawnbroker spent usurer. 
 
 To waste their shillings on this purblind guide 
 
 Under whose lead Truth falls into a ditch 
 
 Whose object is all high things to deride 
 
 And who for lying hath a lecherous itch 
 
 To "blow their money in" on such a "bum" 
 
 Maketh the Nations with genial laughter hum.
 
 SONNETS 23 
 
 Sonnet Twenty-three 
 
 "The Shaving of Shag Pat'" 
 
 George Meredith. 
 
 'Gainst Shag "Pat" Shaw take I the field once more 
 
 The tail of "Scorpio" begins to swish 
 
 In that "bum" dramatist and bloody bore 
 
 To plant its sting the Zodiac doth wish. 
 
 To be quite frank Shaw is its chopping-block 
 
 Its "easy-mark" and "good-thing-to-push along" 
 
 "Pat" Shaw, whose "bum" dramas are but poppy-cock 
 
 And hypocracy, mendacity, stink strong. 
 
 The Shaviad of Shag "Pat" Shaw this starts 
 
 O' my fights with smug Pat Shaw the Iliad 
 
 Divided up in Books, Cantos, Stanzas parts 
 
 Wherein Shaw "takes the count" this Shaviad. 
 
 By "Scorpio" Pat Shaw will be "rant" 
 
 This brazen "zingeur" will be bien plante!
 
 24 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Twenty-four 
 
 A Prince of Liars 
 
 A titled liar is Sir Sidney Lee! 
 
 As ponderous and pompous as he's bland. 
 
 Tall t'honours o' th' liar entitl'd 's he ! 
 
 He's the first and foremost liar in the land ! 
 
 Bar only one the Liar-Paramount 
 
 The King of Liars the Great Non-Pareil! 
 
 Whose inspiration doth upward ever mount 
 
 From the Bottomless Pit with the stench of Hell ! 
 
 As foul Falstaff hack'd and stabb'd bold Hotspur's corse 
 
 And lied about it to make capital 
 
 So Lee re great King Edward lied in due course 
 
 Him of treason I attaint ! Crime capital. 
 
 "The Peace-Maker" is King Edward's title grand 
 
 L'Entente Cordiale sprang from his kingly hand !
 
 SONNETS 25 
 
 Sonnet Twenty-five 
 
 Tolstoy 
 
 MAZEPPA. 
 
 "Bring forth the horse! the horse was brought; 
 In truth, he was a noble steed, 
 A Tartar of the Ukraine breed, 
 Who look d as though the speed of thought 
 Were in his limbs; but he was wild, 
 Wild as the wild deer, and untaught, 
 With spur and bridle undefiled 
 'Twas but a day he had been caught; 
 And snorting, with erected mane, 
 And struggling fiercely, but in vain, 
 In the full foam of wrath and dread 
 To me the desert-born was led." 
 
 Lord Byron. 
 
 Tolstoy was a doomed Tartar Dookobar 
 
 Doom'd for all time midst fanatics fell to shine 
 
 His logic unworthy e'en a hip-hurrah 
 
 Not worth "three hooraws" I do deep opine. 
 
 A Kalmuck Tartar of the Ukraine breed 
 
 Wild as "Mazeppa's" horse great Byron sang 
 
 'Gainst aught of beauty his voice was but a screed 
 
 'Gainst aught of nature it coarse, hoarse, raucous rang! 
 
 O' th' beauty o' the lillies nought he knew 
 
 "The lillies of the field" that Christ did paint 
 
 And with His magic touch their portrait drew 
 
 To forever upward cheer the heart world-faint ! 
 
 As novelist he the artist beautiful ! 
 
 But interpreter of Christ most pitiful.
 
 26 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Twenty-six 
 
 Maeterlinck 
 
 or 
 
 John O' Dreams 
 
 Good Maeterlinck I would that thou couldst think. 
 
 If thou couldst think thou wouldst be truly great 
 
 "Pis lack of thought that makes thy logic blink 
 
 To be thus frank believe me do I hate. 
 
 But 'tis my duty to unmask the fraud 
 
 Humbugs and fakirs which bestride the world 
 
 And at the same time struggling virtue laud 
 
 That crafty humbugs are fell Hellwards hurl'd. 
 
 Remember I as lawyer long am train'd 
 
 To think i' th' cold deadly logic o' th' Law 
 
 With eye long train'd to pierce a thing that's "framed' 
 
 To wither sophistry and uproot flaw. 
 
 As dreamer thou stand'st first in thine own class 
 
 As dreamer no man e'er did thee surpass.
 
 SONNETS 27 
 
 Sonnet Twenty-seven 
 
 G. K. Chefterton 
 
 The biggest bag of wind in England is 
 
 Beyond all question G. K. Chesterton. 
 
 The roundest, plumpest, fattest, bumptious-phiz 
 
 And longest lethal bore is "Chesty" One! 
 
 You bluff and "fiddle," "side-step," back and fill 
 
 You "thimble-rig" and "flim-flam" with your pen 
 
 Attempt to palm off wholesome things as ill 
 
 Whilst for ill-things dost thou loudly "bark" to men. 
 
 In fact you simply stand upon your head 
 
 And whirl and caper with your feet in air 
 
 For G d's sake, Chesterton, these follies shed 
 
 And play the game you can play bold and fair ! 
 
 A brilliant mind at present runs amuck 
 
 Reform ! Be Robin Hood not Friar Tuck.
 
 28 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Twenty-eight 
 
 Canny Andy 
 
 "I hadna been in the town five hours before bang, went a sax- 
 punce !" 
 
 (A Scotsman's letter home from London.) 
 
 There's a saxpunce soon that 's going to go "bang" 
 
 There's a Scotchman soon that 's going to "sweat blood" 
 
 From all his pores with almost mortal pang ! 
 
 Then grunt and growl and chew a bitter cud. 
 
 The veil from off that income will be lift 
 
 "The Mysteries of Udolpho" will be solv'd 
 
 By Uncle Sam those "billets" will be sift 
 
 And by him those vast rolling mills revolv'd. 
 
 Now, "Sandy" loves a saxpunce unco weel 
 
 And "Sandy" hates to "give up" unco bad 
 
 So from stocky little "Sandy" '11 come a "squeal" 
 
 When the income tax assessor's day's been had! 
 
 But of all the Sons of Mammon Sandy's King. 
 
 He gives up most is honest this I sing.
 
 SONNETS 29 
 
 Sonnet Twenty-nine 
 
 Bloodthirsty! 
 
 I know a warrior a son of Mars 
 
 Whose red right eye spouts blood in dark fierce jets! 
 
 And when this fighter doth entrain for wars 
 
 The "wise guy" 'gainst the other side swift bets. 
 
 The "wise guy" hies him to a bookmaker 
 
 And gasps in stifl'd accents "I'll lay odds !" 
 
 The bookmaker, aghast, exclaims, "No taker!" 
 
 Tho 't sounds like gift direct from friendly gods. 
 
 Knowing said man I know my country's safe 
 
 Both from invasion and from dread defeat 
 
 Per him the strongest foe would be a waif 
 
 Which with Goliath did by fell fortune meet. 
 
 At threat of war this hero did resign 
 
 Because magnanimous none by him might shine.
 
 30 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Thirty 
 
 A Box of Kittens 
 
 The kittens have begun to straddle 'round 
 
 The cunning creatures with their tails in air ! 
 
 As stiff as ram-rod, like the "stern" of hound 
 
 Or pointer which the woodcock's scent doth fiaire. 
 
 Their weak hind-quarters totter as they go 
 
 Their little paws spread out and clutch the floor 
 
 Their pace is cautious and exceeding slow 
 
 With nose to ground as tho' they track'd a "spoor." 
 
 No sound from out their little frames doth come 
 
 They're too concentred on th' aforesaid aim 
 
 The only sound 's their mother's purring hum 
 
 As towards her young her watchful glance doth aim. 
 
 No cat was ever "catty" unto me. 
 
 I'm fond of cats. Cats little lions be.
 
 SONNETS 31 
 
 Sonnet Thirty-one 
 
 Jezebel 
 
 A lady now I paint a Jezebel 
 
 A rakish creature with a cocotte's face 
 
 An English woman but no names I tell 
 
 Whose novels starkly are a black disgrace. 
 
 The apostle, she, of sly adultery 
 
 Of smug licentiousness in married guise 
 
 And all the subterfuge skullduggery 
 
 That drapes its nakedness from public eyes. 
 
 Talent she hath but 'tis lascivious 
 
 Her soul did Kipling draw in his "Vampire"- 
 
 Of heart or conscience all oblivious 
 
 To cash and conquest doth she sole aspire. 
 
 To limn this lady almost makes me blush. 
 
 Now as to who she is, just one word hush.
 
 32 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Thirty-two 
 
 The Turkey Trot 
 
 Vulgarity, debauchery, hand in hand 
 
 Now whirl their way down Gotham's gilded halls. 
 
 The spectacle so shocks it makes us stand 
 
 At gaze in horror! So the sight appals! 
 
 Debauched cads enticing maidens on 
 
 To "trot" and "hug" in most unseemly maze 
 
 And all the meretricious airs to don 
 
 That meet the Cabaret's licentious gaze ! 
 
 To writhe and squirm and wriggle turn and twist 
 
 To faint and languish in their partner's grasp 
 
 T' obey the guidance of an amorous wrist 
 
 As hip to hip their yielding forms they clasp ! 
 
 This sight in New York 's seen 'most any day 
 
 "Hip! Hip! Hooraw!" It makes the demons say.
 
 SONNETS 33 
 
 Sonnet Thirty- three 
 
 Solitude 
 
 If 'twixt my lips sonnets tumultuous pour 
 
 Like molten lava down Vesuvius' side 
 
 Therein are wither'd up fool, rogue or bore 
 
 Thereby hypocrisy is scarified. 
 
 My verse compose I as I ride along 
 
 In silent reverie on men and things 
 
 On horse-back thus is born my fighting-song 
 
 From the saddle doth my Muse strong spread her wings. 
 
 As thro' the forest I do slowly ride 
 
 These dear Virginia woods that I love so 
 
 My verse oft paces with my horse's stride 
 
 And thus in unison we silent go. 
 
 No poet e'er did love sweet Nature more 
 
 Nor hotter hated liar, knave or bore.
 
 34 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Thirty-four 
 
 " The Heart is Deceitful above all things and 
 Desperately Wicked" 
 
 Jeremiah. 
 
 I'm the only man who knows how bad men are 
 Bar popular confessor i' th' Romish Church 
 My kind family imprison'd me "for fair" 
 Hop'd they left me had forever in the lurch. 
 No better blood than theirs i' th' land is found 
 More expensive education none e'er had 
 Touching travel they have been the wide world round 
 Yet in spite of this their record's very bad. 
 Two of my brothers 'gainst me perjurd deep 
 Swore to a lie "railroaded" me to gaol. 
 At freedom ne'er should I have had a peep 
 Had I not ta'en "French leave" taken "leg-bail." 
 The heart of man's as desperate today 
 As when Jeremiah his dark words did say.
 
 SONNETS 35 
 
 Sonnet Thirty-five 
 
 "The Love of Money is the Root of All Evil" 
 
 But lust for lucre and a rankling spite 
 
 Which they had nurs'd 'gainst me for many years 
 
 Their feeble principle o'erbalanc'd quite 
 
 And made them prison risk with all its .fears. 
 
 My million and a half quite turn'd their brain 
 
 They lusted for it with a miser's lust 
 
 Tho' all and several had about the same 
 
 Each and all decided my gold have they must. 
 
 So as black a plot as e'er in brain of man 
 
 Did germinate, gestate, and final rise 
 
 My family did plot and plotting plan 
 
 As shrewd a plot as e'er did fright men's eyes. 
 
 Thus love and hate conjoin'd combatted me 
 
 'Twas love of gold, and hate of me, you see.
 
 36 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Thirty-six 
 
 My Parents 
 
 No grander Parents e'er did have a man 
 
 Than my sweet Mother and my Father stern. 
 
 A Roman he, built on the antique plan 
 
 That with justice treats the wrongs one doth discern 
 
 With justice which sweet mercy tempereth 
 
 A justice which is tinged deep with love 
 
 And o'er his offspring's budding passions hov'reth 
 
 With a constancy nought earthly can remove. 
 
 Religion in these two was vital breath 
 
 Where practice joined hand in hand with creed 
 
 Turning dark death into a victor's wreath 
 
 The laurel that doth crown the warrior's meed! 
 
 Thus birth, wealth, training, and rich learning's use 
 
 Shower'd on their children from hand profuse.
 
 SONNETS 37 
 
 Sonnet Thirty-seven 
 
 They Are Seven 
 
 With seven brothers and sisters am I curst. 
 My juniors, they, and all are fair to see. 
 In them doth beauty make of mask the worst 
 That e'er in noble guise hid treachery. 
 The women charming as the men are brave 
 Two have brave records in the Spanish war- 
 With charm which the beholder soft doth lave 
 As cooling unguents o'er a burning scar. 
 Yet these lovely ladies left me to dry-rot 
 Linger and perish in a noisome cell 
 And yet these warlike brothers blood forgot 
 And doomed me untried to a living Hell ! 
 Three ladies and four gentlemen 's the roll 
 Their record's knell do I now slowly toll. 
 
 4O2C.32
 
 SOXXETS 
 
 Sonnet Thirty-eight 
 
 Midnight* 
 
 The thunder mutters fitfully o'erhead. 
 
 The sulphurous air comes heavy to the lungs 
 
 Anon a sheet o' summer lightning's shed, 
 
 Anon, the muttering strengthens into booms. 
 
 The rain has ceased. Merely a Death- Watch drop 
 
 Falls tickingly from the eaves to th' metall'd roof 
 
 Below, porch-covering. Hist! The Death-Ticks stop! 
 
 Drowned in a flood of rain resonant as hoof 
 
 Of Fairy charger galloping a-main! 
 
 Again, as 't came, the rain ceases suddenly. 
 
 From the field a cricket's monotone refrain 
 
 Silvery sleigh-bell tinkle throbs bubblingly. 
 
 So sharp ring the changes on Life's deep-toned Bells 
 
 Now mad peals of Joy or Victory now knells.
 
 SONNETS 39 
 
 Sonnet Thirty-nine 
 
 A Call * 
 
 Think not because I see the Sin and Shame 
 Of this distracted mercenary Age, 
 Think not because that I can villains blame 
 And cause black rascals to grow white wi' rage 
 Think not because of this I cannot see 
 And what is deeper feel to my heart's core 
 The worthy struggling in Oppression's Sea 
 Hear their death-cries rise o'er Her murderous roar! 
 'Tis because that them labouring brave I see 
 Grim-mute, or Indian death-yells dire I hear 
 Their brave stedfast purpose strikes my sympathy, 
 Their cry "How long!" hath come unto my ear. 
 Reserve your strength ! Sagaciously strive on ! 
 Wait not too long in me you've wary champion.
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Forty 
 
 Wordsworth* 
 
 The clang o' Shakspeare Wordsworth 's on your tongue ! 
 
 The brazen clang, the thunderous clang o' war! 
 
 Anon the mystic witchery o' th' rune 
 
 As dim as Autumn mists steals lazily o'er 
 
 The chords. Anon the Prophet chant o' th' Seer 
 
 Rises, floats, falls majestically adown 
 
 The caverns dark mysterious o' th' weird 
 
 Th' unknown, the sinister, the beautiful mound 
 
 Of Thought the Mind. The Mind! That link atween 
 
 The visible and th' invisible. The chain 
 
 Binding willing and unwilling to Th' Unseen! 
 
 Faith or Doubt to break these fetters all is vain. 
 
 To pierce or steal their secrets which bewilder 
 
 Was placed beyond our reach by The Mound-Builder.
 
 SONNETS 4 i 
 
 Sonnet Forty-one 
 
 The Rubicon of the Unknown 
 
 A wanderer, pale, ragged, haggard, forlorn 
 
 But buoyed by a courage greater far 
 
 Than e'er grasp'd sword e'en tho' of Hope all bare-shorn 
 
 For o'er his heart Despair shone as icy star 
 
 Unarmed, struck with his fist th' embattled Door 
 
 Of Paradise! A Voice, whence unknown, smote th' ear 
 
 "Mean ruffian what dare make you here! Before 
 
 These Gates ! Before this Door ! What make you here!" 
 
 "I make a venture. Pray Unknown Voice, say on." 
 
 "Mortal, surely you wot not what you do!" 
 
 "True. And care not what I do so something's done ! 
 
 All earth's draughts have I quaffed Her pleasures 
 
 plummed to 
 
 The bottom. Nought's left to me but Th' Unknown. 
 For me nought's left but cross Th' Unknown's rubicon!"
 
 42 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Forty-two 
 
 There is a Tide 
 
 "There is a tide in the affairs of men 
 Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune. 
 Omitted all the voyage of their lives 
 Is bound in shallows and in miseries." 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 This tide I took, and it did carry me 
 
 Beyond the furthest bourne of past emprize 
 
 Beyond the dimmest reach of poesy 
 
 Beyond Imagination's piercing eyes. 
 
 And what did I bring back from that far land 
 
 The Heart of Nature and the Throne of Time, 
 
 Whose waves crisp dreamily along its strand 
 
 Beat without sound in this still mystic clime? 
 
 That Nature more mysterious is by far! 
 
 Than sage e'er guessed or poet even dreamed 
 
 That Truth gleams distant from us as a star 
 
 Of which the first faint rays have scarcely beamed ! 
 
 Or soon or late all reach this distant shore. 
 
 So Conscience be the guide for evermore! 
 
 NOTE. "So" is here used in the sense "provided that."
 
 SONNETS 43 
 
 Sonnet Forty-three 
 
 "Le Noir Faineant" 
 
 or 
 
 After the Tournament 
 
 On his snow-white battle charger fierce "Mesrour" 
 Follow'd by his plump of spears he rode away 
 His Free Companions tried of aspect dour 
 Scorners of death whom nothing can dismay 
 With such men at his back he welcomes strife 
 Its din rings in his ears as sweet as song 
 Tinting the dark monotony of life 
 To a symphony whose chords rise rich as strong! 
 For them that frowning horde o' th' wielders o' th' pen- 
 Hostile Critic Journalists is wholesome meat! 
 Thro' their vast numbers ride these trained men 
 Carving at will to right and left "Defeat" 
 On "Mesrour" the horse of death the steed of doom 
 He forced a world in arms to give him room.
 
 44 SONNETS 
 
 Group of Six Dramatic Sonnets Entitled 
 
 THE ROSARY* 
 
 Written For Those In Great Tribulation, To Whom Resignation Has 
 Not Yet Come. 
 
 First Samuel, 23 and 29: "And David went up from thence, and 
 dwelt in strongholds at En-gedi." 
 . 24 and i: . . . . "In the wilderness of En^gedi." 
 
 Ecclesiastes, 4:1-2-3: "So I returned, and considered all the op- 
 pressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as 
 were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their 
 oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. 
 
 Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than 
 the living which are yet alive. 
 
 Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who 
 hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun." 
 
 Book of Job, 38 and 5: "Gird up now thy loins like a man and 
 answer thou me."* 
 
 God to Job. 
 
 *Hebrew "make me know."
 
 SONNETS 45 
 
 Sonnet Forty-four 
 
 The Rosary 
 
 (i) 
 
 (The Solitary of En-gedi loquitur.) 
 "Jehovah Jah a studious word with Thee 
 I've served Thee now for lo! full fifty years 
 During which time all cause for joy and glee 
 Hath been foul swamped in full cause for tears. 
 My patience now doth draw unto an end 
 And logic saith 'The Almighty hath "gone back." ' 
 So you and I now part, mine august Friend, 
 Until You've proven that Thou canst 'come back.' 
 'So mote it be !' And Heaven speed the day ! 
 When God Almighty once more gets His grip. 
 On that grand day I'll raise a roundelay 
 And shout Hosannas from tumultuous lip. 
 Here's strength to God Almighty's outstretch'd arm 
 May it soon be strong enough to save from harm !"
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Forty-five 
 
 The Rosary 
 
 (ii)' 
 
 "If I can help Thee, simply say the word 
 
 In aught that man can do I'll rend Thee aid 
 
 If You'll supply the troops I'll draw the sword 
 
 For of blood-letting I'm not the least afraid. 
 
 That You need help is long beyond all talk 
 
 For nothing canst Thou do without vile man. 
 
 Ask You to do a thing sans man's help, You balk. 
 
 I've frequent tried and don't believe You can. 
 
 There's something rotten in great Denmark's State 
 
 There's something wrong about the 'Great White Throne' 
 
 Satan caught You napping You got up too late 
 
 And so 'lost out' and so can't stand alone. 
 
 Now to beat the Devil You must call in man 
 
 Whose days are shuttle-swift whose life a span."
 
 SONNETS 47 
 
 Sonnet Forty-six 
 
 The Rosary 
 
 (in) 
 
 "I'm surely sorry You're in such a hole 
 
 It grieves me much. It even makes me sore 
 
 That God Almighty is in need of dole 
 
 Must pass the hat, and humbly crave for more. 
 
 It is too bad, when one doth think thereon, 
 
 It is a shame, it is, a beastly shame 
 
 That Omnipotence should feel fell Fortune's frown 
 
 And for man's rascality must take the blame. 
 
 It is a pity deep as ever was 
 
 That 'The Man of War' should port a bad black eye 
 
 How did it happen O ! Thou great First Cause 
 
 How did it come to pass the wherefore why? 
 
 Summon Thy courage! Answer if you can! 
 
 Recall old Job ! Gird up and be a man !"
 
 48 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Forty-seven 
 
 The Rosary 
 
 (IV) 
 
 "That Thou art crafty none 'in the know' can doubt 
 
 You're smooth as any Jew as bien ruse 
 
 And deep deceive a man beyond all doubt 
 
 And on his feelings will most lightsome play. 
 
 Great Moses' bout with Thee proves this to th' hilt 
 
 You falsified to Moses right along 
 
 With Moses frequently You made truth wilt 
 
 But he was 'on to' You, and 'held' You strong! 
 
 You made the Devil he's Your own sweet job 
 
 He's 'got nothing on You' when it comes to guile 
 
 Its easy to You as rolling off a log 
 
 It comes as easy as a Fakir's smile 
 
 In Moses surely You did meet Your match 
 
 And Moses napping did You never catch!"
 
 SONNETS 49 
 
 Sonnet Forty-eight 
 
 The Rosary 
 
 (V) 
 
 "I take my leave of Thee won't be gainsay'd 
 I've but one regret on earth but that is rank 
 I spurn the nearly fifty years I've pray'd 
 Spurn as deep as tho' each of the fifty stank! 
 As well pour water down a dark rat hole 
 Or blow (to bursting) up a hollow tree 
 Or hire as pilot a round, sleek, fat mole 
 As look for aid or comfort unto Thee. 
 Deaf to injustice as an adder's ears 
 Blind to foul wrong as ever was a bat 
 Your impotence is worthy naught but jeers 
 Or hottest blasphemy "right off the bat." 
 Dark Moloch mark the parting of the ways 
 And look Your last on him who no more prays."
 
 50 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Forty-nine 
 
 The Rosary 
 
 (VI) 
 
 "What a fearful bluff was that re Jesus Christ ! 
 'Lo ! I come quickly' is the rankest lie 
 The biggest belli'd bluff, I truly wist 
 That on Time's burdened table e'er did lie. 
 Naught can defend it 'tis a deep untruth. 
 There's not a word of truth that lurks therein 
 To put up such a bluff, is, in good sooth, 
 To gambol nimbly on the verge of sin. 
 I'm sick of man because I know the brute 
 I'm sick of God because He won't "make good" 
 I'm sick of Christ because, beyond dispute, 
 He won't 'come quickly' by the Holy Rood! 
 Thus this foul world's 'twixt Hell and high water 
 The wise man's watch-word is : 'Watch out ! with Laugh- 
 ter.' "
 
 SONNETS 51 
 
 Sonnet Fifty 
 
 A Twentieth Century Psalm 
 
 (i) 
 
 I wish to God, O ! God, that Thou wert here 
 To take Thine august seat upon the Bench. 
 My request is somewhat difficult, I fear, 
 Thy coming would give man a fearful wrench ! 
 But Thou, O Lord, seest the heart of man 
 Thine eye all penetrant is full as keen 
 As when the face of David Thou didst scan 
 And spake to Samuel those words serene. 
 So Thou dost know that I do wish Thou'dst come 
 Thou knowest what I write is no man's bluff 
 For years near seventeen my woof's been spun 
 Is not my web of patience warp'd enough? 
 But I believe, O Lord, Thou know'st Thy game 
 So by faith I'll cling to what none can explain.
 
 52 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Fifty-one 
 
 A Twentieth Century Psalm 
 
 (ii) 
 
 "Let the Lord Arise and His Enemies Be Scattered." 
 
 King David. 
 
 That is my wish, Jehovah Jah, my hope. 
 The time appears to me to be full ripe 
 That the New York rogues with whom so long I cope 
 Should my goods give up, and don the coming stripe. 
 Thou know'st, Jehovah, I no prophet am 
 Therefore speak I under Thy supreme will 
 If the time is not fulfill'd in Thy world-plan 
 Grimly I'll suffer till Thy sands do fill. 
 But when that time doth come, show that toward wrong 
 Thine arm 's as long as e'er it was before 
 And to avenge and protect th' oppress'd as strong 
 That "The everlasting arms" are those of yore ! 
 'Tis not for myself that I put up this psalm 
 To protect myself I've prov'd that I am calm.
 
 SONNETS S3 
 
 Sonnet Fifty-two 
 
 Death 
 
 When our appointed sands shall run their course 
 
 When in life's brief hour-glass none doth remain 
 
 When death's mysterious river we must cross 
 
 The following thoughts may ease the Soul her pain. 
 
 Death the Angel is of all activity 
 
 The "open sesame" to action rare! 
 
 The quick'ning of a new nativity 
 
 In a world which is as dreadful as it's fair. 
 
 The bones do rest, the dust doth rest. They rest. 
 
 But the Spirit that which sprang from God's bright 
 
 Throne 
 
 The Spirit which His breath gives life and zest 
 The Spirit thro' eternity goes on! 
 Tomb the portal is to Hell or Paradise 
 Purgatory is Hell and versa vice. ,
 
 54 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Fifty-three 
 
 The Armour of the Soul 
 
 To that mighty architect o' th' Christian Creed 
 Tarsian Saul of all apostles great 
 To whose words of fire turn'd I in hour of need 
 These simple lines I humbly dedicate. 
 That soul encompassed is in complete steel 
 Lock'd up in armour, mailclad, all in proof! 
 That ne'er the stab of Conscience e'er doth feel 
 That ne'er from her soul's Lord doth feel reproof. 
 The helm of wisdom should she then put on 
 Not erudition mere, but deep common-sense. 
 Then seize the shield all darts strike blunt upon - 
 The Gorgon-shield of calm indifference. 
 With the weapon for the soul St. Paul did forge 
 A man might vie in battle with St. George !
 
 SONNETS 55 
 
 Sonnet Fifty-four 
 
 L'Envoi 
 
 A Salt- Water-Ananias 
 
 Yo-Heave- Ho! My Hearties 
 
 (Dedicated to the author of the following editorial paragraph.) 
 
 "If Mr. John Armstrong Chaloner doesn't want the public to be- 
 come convinced that he really is mentally unbalanced he will quit un- 
 loading his poems on it." Norfolk (Va.) Pilot, June 13, 1913. 
 
 Since when, my little man, were you elect 
 
 To pass on poems or on sanity 
 
 That you judicial office should effect 
 
 And barefac'ed beget th' above inanity? 
 
 Prince Bismarck once remarked on "The Reptile Press" 
 
 That section of the press that loves a lie 
 
 If he'd had to deal with thee I frankly guess 
 
 The Pismire Press, we'd see in History ! 
 
 A snake's too big a thing to picture you 
 
 A man attack'd by snake doth sometimes die 
 
 But a man whom little you attempt to do 
 
 Hath nothing worse to face than a nasty lie. 
 
 Virginia's courts prov'd my mind's sans a flaw 
 
 Yet you turn-coat deride your own State's law.
 
 56 SONNETS 
 
 Sonnet Fifty-five 
 
 A Fresh- Water-Ananias 
 
 A Biff for "Little Bing" 
 
 "John Armstrong Chaloner the 'Who's Looney Now?' man has 
 written a poem which his lawyer says will prove he is sane. After read- 
 ing the poem we're inclined to think his best chance is to plead an alibi." 
 Press, Binghamton, N. Y., June 14, 1913. 
 
 Here's another pillar o' th' Pismire Press! 
 Paragrapher o' th' "Press" of Little Bing 
 Who of the truth makes much the nasty mess 
 As "salt-water-pismire" whom we recent sing, 
 The Devil doth work strong in souls like these 
 Such souls Hell's vassals are His vavasours 
 Hence lying with them is a real disease 
 A very pestilence that knows no cure ! 
 "Plague, pestilence, and famine" dwell in them 
 A harbourge they are for Hell's Three Hounds 
 Each hath an itch to plague all brighter men 
 While their famine of all honour knows no bounds ! 
 May the owners of said papers their house clean 
 And purge their paper's pay-rolls of souls so mean.
 
 SONNETS 57 
 
 Sonnet Fifty-six 
 
 The Future Duke of Asteroid t 
 
 or 
 
 "Cousin Willie" 
 
 Bravo ! Cousin Willie ! Punch 'em once again ! 
 
 Buy another paper, and then, keep on! 
 
 And show these "bloomin' perishin' " Englishmen 
 
 You're bound to win the game you're bent upon. 
 
 And when you're made the Duke of Asteroid 
 
 The Duke of Astor'd be too big for you 
 
 See that a cleaver's on your arm's deployed 
 
 A butcher's cleaver thereon doth spring in view. 
 
 The Butcher of Waldorf's son a genius was 
 
 No greater Merchant Prince did ever live 
 
 So of this genius give the natal cause 
 
 To axe and chopping-block all honour give! 
 
 That my blue-blood mingled with thy humble strain 
 
 Doth please me much I love the people plain. 
 
 tOn reading, June 2ist, 1913, in a London dispatch, that William 
 Waldorf Astor has just acquired the London "Morning Post," he now 
 already owning the London "Pall-Mall Gazette" and London "Ob- 
 server."
 
 The "Tribune" 
 
 New York City, July 15, 1912 
 
 Chaloner Cuts off all His Relatives 
 
 FORMER HUSBAND OF AMELIE RIVES DEVISES HIS 
 
 PROPERTY TO EDUCATIONAL AND 
 
 CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 RETAINS CONTROL FOR LIFE. 
 
 LEGALLY INSANE IN NEW YORK, BUT SANE IN EVERY OTHER STATE, HE HAS 
 QUARRELLED WITH ALL THE CHANLERS ESTATE WORTH A MILLION. 
 
 RICHMOND, Va., July 14. John Armstrong Chaloner made public 
 today the details of a deed, filed with Sterling M. Gary, clerk of the 
 Superior Court, Halifax County, N. C, on May 13, 1912, by virtue of 
 which he devises all of his property, both in this State and in New 
 York, to different institutions and charities. The boards of visitors of 
 the University of Virginia and of the University of North Carolina are 
 made Chaloner's residuary legatees. 
 
 The deed disposes of property worth hundreds of thousands of dol- 
 lars, and was created, according to Mr. Chaloner, for the express pur- 
 pose of preventing his relatives from sharing in his estate in the event 
 of his death. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner has figured in court proceedings fre- 
 quently in recent years. He was adjudged insane and committed to the 
 Bloomingdale Asylum in 1897 at the instance of several of his near 
 relatives. On Thanksgiving Eve, 1900, he escaped from the institution 
 and made his way to Philadelphia, where he voluntarily submitted to 
 a six months' observation treatment by prominent alienists in that 
 city. These physicians pronounced him sane. Chaloner then returned 
 to his ancestral estate, "The Merry Mills," at Cobham, Va., and has 
 spent most of his time there and in North Carolina since. 
 (I)
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 A peculiar feature of Chaloner's case lies in the fact that he is 
 legally a lunatic in New York State, but is perfectly sane and com- 
 petent in every other State in the Union. In June, 1908, the Superior 
 Court of North Carolina gave Mr. Chanler permission to change his 
 last name to Chaloner (the ancient form of the name), by which he 
 is now known. He changed the spelling of his name, he said, to escape 
 the stigma which has become identified with the name of Chanler 
 owing to the court proceedings. 
 
 DEED EXECUTED IN MAY. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner constantly refers to the deed executed by him on 
 May I3th last as "my last will and testament," and after reciting in 
 brief the details of the court proceedings to have him committed to 
 Bloomingdale, in 1897, states he has taken "the following means of 
 meeting the undesirable condition which confronts him." He then 
 formally disposes of the different parcels of real estate, shares of stock 
 and personal property. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner makes a provision to the effect that he reserves full 
 control of all the properties deeded and the voting power of all securi- 
 ties bequeathed, as well as the enjoyment of the income thereof, for 
 his life. He also reserves the right to devise the proceeds of the 
 income from his property to various educational institutions, specified 
 as follows : 
 
 To the Paris Prize Fund, amounting to $7S,ooo, and originated by 
 Mr. Chaloner, a certain percentage of the income of his estate, to be 
 set aside annually. This fund is for the purpose of bestowing scholar- 
 ships of $4,500 each, for a five-year course of study in Paris and other 
 European art centres, for art students of both sexes. 
 
 To Columbia University, of New York, the sum of $10,000 is 
 given, to be invested by that institution and the income thereof to go 
 to increasing the Chanler Historical Prize, founded by John Winthrop 
 Chanler. 
 
 Other institutions to be benefited by the terms of Mr. Chaloner's 
 will are the Virginia Military Institute, $10,000, to be applied to a 
 scholarship, to be described in Mr. Chaloner's "last will and testa- 
 ment"; the Virginia Polytechnic Institution, $10,000; the College of 
 Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, of North Carolina, $10,000; the town 
 of Roanoke Rapids, N. C., $10,000, the income thereof to be "applied 
 to the annual purchase of a Christmas tree for the public school chil- 
 dren and a present for each child." 
 
 The University of South Carolina is given the sum of $10,000, to 
 be applied to a scholarship, as is the South Carolina Military College. 
 The Clemson Agricultural College, of South Carolina, is also given
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 $10,000 for a scholarship, and the last institution named is the College 
 of Charleston, S. C., for a like amount. 
 
 The total sum called for in these bequests to educational institu- 
 tions amounts to $90,000, and Mr. Chaloner specifies that if the accu- 
 mulated income on his death be not sufficient to pay these bequests he 
 authorizes his executor, the Virginia Trust Company, of Richmond, to 
 encumber any piece of New York property he owns for the purpose of 
 raising the necessary amount, but not to sell any piece thereof. The 
 ten-story office building at No. 298 Broadway, New York City, owned 
 by Mr. Chaloner, is excepted in this clause of the deed. 
 
 The parcels of real estate and securities deeded to the boards of 
 visitors of the Universities of Virginia and of North Carolina include: 
 
 (1) 856 shares of the preferred capital stock of the United Indus- 
 trial Company, grounds and factory, at Roanoke Rapids, N. C., of the 
 par value of $100 each, and 230 shares of the common capital stock, 
 valued at $100 each. 
 
 (2) 3,540 shares of the capital stock of the Roanoke Rapids Power 
 Company of the par value of $10 each (formerly $100 each, reduced to 
 $10 each), standing in the name of the grantor. This company owns 
 land and water power at Roanoke Rapids, in the State of North 
 Carolina. 
 
 (3) Promissory note of the United Industrial Company, dated 
 August 19, 1898, for $8,000, payable to the order of the grantor, secured 
 by deed of trust or mortgage made by said company to Prescott Hall 
 Butler, as trustee, of even date with said note of or upon the lands and 
 mill and buildings and water rights of said company, situated at 
 Roanoke Rapids, Halifax County, N. C. 
 
 (4) Second mortgage made by the United Industrial Company to 
 the grantor upon its lands and mills and buildings and water rights, 
 situated at Roanoke Rapids, Halifax County, N. C., dated September 
 15, 1898, to secure the payment of $35,112.64 on September 15, 1899, and 
 interest thereon at 6 per cent, per annum, subject to above mentioned 
 first mortgage. 
 
 (5) The grantor's share in the Cozine farm, in New York City, 
 left to him by his grandaunt, Laura Astor Delano. 
 
 (6) Lot of land, with the ten-story office building thereon, situ- 
 ated in the borough of Manhattan, in the city of New York, and 
 known by the street number 298 Broadway. 
 
 (7) A villa site of about 360 acres on the Hudson River, in the 
 township of Rhinebeck, Dutchess County, New York. 
 
 (8) A farm or tract of land situated in the town of Red Hook, 
 in the county of Dutchess, in the State of New York, called the 
 Sipperly Farm, comprising about sixty acres of land, with a small house 
 and barn thereon.
 
 APPEXDIX 
 
 (9) The three hundred acre, more or less, cotton plantation known 
 as the Badger Place, in Halifax County, N. C., between the towns of 
 Roanoke Rapids and Weldon, together with several parcels of real 
 estate in Roanoke Rapids. 
 
 HE IS KIN OF ASTORS. 
 
 At the time of Mr. Chaloner's incarceration in the Bloomingdale 
 Asylum the affair created a furor in Xew York society. He is 
 the eldest of the eight children of the late John Winthrop Chanler, of 
 Xew York, and Charleston, S. C. ; through whom he is descended from 
 John Winthrop, first Governor of Massachusetts under King Charles II, 
 and Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Governor of Xew Amsterdam, 
 now New York. His father died some years ago. Mr. Chaloner is 
 also related to the Astor family of New York through his late mother, 
 a granddaughter of the original John Jacob Astor. He is a cousin of 
 William Waldorf Astor and John Jacob Astor, who went down with 
 the White Star liner "Titanic." He is now about forty-nine years old. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner's brothers and sisters are Winthrop Astor Chanler, 
 Colonel William Astor Chanler, ex-Congressman from New York; 
 Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler, former Lieutenant-Governor of New York; 
 Robert Winthrop Chanler, formerly Sheriff of Dutchess County, New 
 York; Elizabeth Winthrop Chanler Chapman, Margaret Livingston 
 Chanler Aldrich and Alida Beeckman Chanler Emmet. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner married Amelie Rives, the writer, on 
 June 14, 1888, and she divorced him in 1895, because of incompatibility 
 of temperament. She later married Prince Pierre Troubetzkoy, a Rus- 
 sian portrait painter. 
 
 Ever since his escape from Bloomingdale Mr. Chaloner has shown 
 the greatest bitterness against his relatives who sought to have him 
 adjudged insane. He has at all times refused to treat with them, no 
 matter what the occasion. 
 
 In March, 1009, Chaloner shot and killed John Gillard in the Merry 
 Mills house in a scuffle over a revolver. Gillard had attacked his 
 Gillard's wife, and had drawn a revolver, preparatory to shooting her, 
 when Chaloner grappled with the man, the weapon being discharged in 
 the fight. A jury of Virginia farmers acquitted Chaloner and compli- 
 mented him on the splendid courage he had shown in defending the 
 life of Mrs. Gillard. 
 
 Chaloner later bought a piece of ground and erected a tombstone 
 to Gillard.* 
 
 *The coroner's jury on March 16, 1909, acquitted Chaloner of shooting Gillard, 
 in the following language, in effect: Gillard was killed by a bullet from a revol- 
 ver in his hands and those of John Armstrong Chaloner, while the latter was 
 attempting, in good faith, to prevent Gillard from shooting his, Gillard's, wife.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 * Prologue : page xxxi. 
 
 Right here the author of "Scorpio" must perforce pause not "for 
 a reply," but to forestall a false reply upon the part of uninformed 
 or hostile critics. When it is understood that around this man's name 
 whirl six libel suits, in three great cities, involving hundreds of thou- 
 sands of dollars of damages, now pending; the most casual reader 
 will see that it is a friendly a charitable act, upon our part to 
 prevent all possibility of a misunderstanding concerning our attitude 
 in the said Gillard affair, and thus prevent the necessity of our bring- 
 ing fresh libel suits on account of new lies dished up by malicious 
 and evil-disposed members of the great Journalistic profession. 
 
 In the first place, the author of "Scorpio" was upon the defensive 
 from first to last in said Gillard affair. It is not our purpose to take 
 the cream off one of the most dramatic newspaper stories ever de- 
 veloped in a court of law, by saying one unnecessary word about the 
 inside facts of the said sad catastrophe. All that will be brought to 
 town in due time, when our said libel suits reach a hearing. Let it 
 suffice to say therefore, that it has already been incontrovertibly 
 proved in legal proceedings already had in said premises that the 
 writer was knocked down twice by said Gillard, with a pair of heavy 
 iron tongs, before the writer raised a finger against said Gillard. That 
 even after being knocked down, the writer did not raise a finger 
 against said Gillard until said Gillard had seised a revolver and pointed 
 it full in his said Gillard's wife's face, with the indisputable desire 
 of discharging same. Then, and then only, did the author of "Scorpio" 
 grapple with said Gillard in order to prevent murder in his own 
 dining-room at "The Merry Mills," whither said Gillard's wife, accom- 
 panied by an infant in arms, three or four other small children, and 
 her fourteen-year-old son, had come for temporary refuge of a few 
 hours until the two white, married, farmers at "The Merry Mills" 
 should return, with their wives and children, from visiting a neigh- 
 bor when said Gillard's wife and children were to be housed by 
 said farmers' families, until the law could be called in to prevent said 
 Gillard from beating his wife to death it being only after a severe 
 beating with a poker that said Gillard's wife and family mustered up 
 courage enough to fly from Gillard to the protection of the law, as 
 aforesaid. 
 
 Said Gillard lived about two miles from "The Merry Mills." 
 with his wife and family. Neither said Gillard nor his wife had ever 
 spent a day at "The Merry Mills" or been employed by the writer. 
 Said Gillard had been the recipient of considerable charitable aid from 
 the writer for several months preceding his demise, for the reason
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 that he was out of a job, couldn't get one he was a skilled mechanic 
 at the moment in a country neighborhood and had a large family of 
 young children. The writer as can be readily ascertained by inquiring 
 where he lives, in Albemarle County, Virginia, or Halifax County, 
 North Carolina believes in practicing Christianity, if one claims to be 
 a Christian. And the author of "The Rosary?' emphatically is a Chris- 
 tian, with a faith in these weak-kneed chocolate-eclair-spined times 
 second only in intensity to that of David, King of Israel. "Perfect love 
 casteth out fear": hence the author of "The Rosary" is unafraid of 
 the tinge of blasphemy shading that series of sonnets. Verbum sap. 
 
 To resume and conclude. Being a Christian practitioner, the 
 author of "The Rosary" followed the lead given in "bear ye one 
 another's burdens" and took on the load of the Gillard family with a 
 heavy sigh for it was a heavy load ! Paid the rent of their house, 
 and guaranteed the local storekeepers against loss in supplying the 
 said family with necessaries of life, until such time as the big plant 
 in Richmond, Va., should open, full force ; in which said Gillard had 
 been employed upon his recent arrival from England with his family, 
 from which he with a large number of other skilled mechanics was 
 turned off, owing to a partial shut-down of the shops. So much for 
 the facts in the case. 
 
 In the second and last place, our invitation to hostiles in the 
 Prologue is such an one as puts us on the defensive not makes us 
 the aggressor. It is hard to imagine a predicament in which the 
 author of "Scorpio" could be forced into being the aggressor. If 
 the language of any paper is too strong to be replied to in kind 
 iii*., by the pen in one of the various "Scorpios," No. i, No. 2, No. 3, 
 etc., etc., we are fully content to allow the arm of the law to avenge 
 us, and not our own. Hence it would, and could, only be in case an 
 irate hostile came after us that any trouble could ensue. In which 
 event in the premises it would not be of our seeking, any more 
 than the Gillard affair was of our seeking. Can the thickest-headed 
 hostile that ever guided a pen claim that there is anything "contrary 
 to Hoyle" in our position?
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 The "Press" 
 
 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 28, 191$ 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner Turns to Writing Sonnets 
 
 LATEST BOOK ENTITLED "SCORPIO" A COLLECTION OF SHORT POEMS 
 CONTAINING LOTS OF "PUNCH" RAPS GOLDEN HORSESHOE. 
 
 GRANDSON OF ASTOR, WHO SPENT SIX MONTHS IN SANITARIUM HERE, 
 SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN DETAINED, DR. TAYLOR DECLARES. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner is writing sonnets. 
 
 Whosoever must scratch his head to recall who John Armstrong 
 Chaloner is, need only recall newspaper and magazine articles of the 
 last half dozen_ years, those stories about the millionaire Virginian who 
 was confined in a New York insane asylum at the instance of his 
 family. 
 
 "Who's looney now?" became a by-word in conversation and writ- 
 ings when Chaloner escaped from "Bloomingdale," where he was con- 
 fined, and went back to his home at Merry Mills, Cobham, Va. It was 
 Chaloner himself who asked the question and he directed it at those 
 members of his own family, who, he maintained, had him incarcerated 
 so that they could use and manage his estate. 
 
 It will be remembered that Chaloner came directly to Philadelphia 
 when he escaped and as "John Childe" entered a private sanitarium, 
 where after six months of observation he was declared a normal man 
 by Drs. J. Madison Taylor, H. C. Wood and Thompson Jay Hudson. 
 It was at Dr. Taylor's sanitarium that he stayed as "John Childe." 
 
 Dr. Taylor was asked yesterday if he had read Chaloner's book of 
 sonnets, which has been entitled "Scorpio." 
 
 SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN DETAINED. 
 
 "Yes, I have," the alienist said, "and I consider it a fine and unique 
 effort of special pleading." Dr. Taylor said that Chaloner had been 
 evidently normal from the first day he set foot in the sanitarium in this 
 city and that he should never have been detained anywhere. It was 
 always plain that Chaloner was a brilliant man, the doctor said, but 
 while here he had never given any inkling of his intention to write.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 This book "Scorpio" is a collection of really brilliant sonnets. 
 They follow the Shakespearean style in construction, and have what 
 might be called the "punch." He tells very frankly in his prologue, 
 in which he chooses to employ the editorial "we" rather than the first 
 person, that he well realizes that magazines and newspapers and simi- 
 lar agencies are so controlled that they cannot print what their editors 
 would wish, but that he with his million dollars behind him can do 
 much as he pleases, and devil take the hindmost. 
 
 So he chooses his subjects from a wide field and hammers whom 
 he pleases. As an indicative title, he could not have chosen better than 
 "Scorpio." He whips and scourages with a real vehemence, and there is 
 both logic and music in his way of putting it together. 
 
 RAPS GOLDEN HORSESHOE. 
 
 For instance: "The Devil's Horseshoe." In this particular period 
 of opera unrest, of which Philadelphia is getting its share now, it is 
 interesting to print that especial sonnet. To any one who has ever 
 been in the Metropolitan Opera House in New York it is evident that 
 he has in mind the Golden Horseshoe. Here it is : 
 
 A fecund sight for the philosopher 
 
 Rich as Golconda's mine in lessons rare 
 That gem-bedizn'd "horse shoe" at th' Opera, 
 
 Replete with costly hags and matrons fair ! 
 His votaresses doth Mammon there array, 
 
 His Amazonian Phalanx dread to face ! 
 To Mammon there do they their homage pay; 
 
 Spangl'd with jewels, satins, silks and lace, 
 Crones whose old bosoms in their corsets creak; 
 
 Beldames whose slightest glance would fright a horse; 
 Ghouls when they speak one hears the grave-mole squeak 
 
 Their escorts parvenus of feature coarse. 
 A rich array of Luxury and Vice ! 
 
 But, spite of them, the music's very nice. 
 
 In the prologue, which by the way, is every bit as interesting as are 
 the sonnets themselves, he explains that he does not take himself seri- 
 ously, that he backs no "isms," advocates no new departures, detests 
 cranky theories, and then continues in this wise : 
 
 We meaning himself are guided by the same everyday prin- 
 ciples of the educated man in the street, who has happened to run 
 across a medium for flaying fools and rogues that, in concentration,
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 swiftness of action, and completeness of result, beats any form of 
 satirical flagellation. We allude, of course, to the Shakespearean form 
 of sonnet, ending, as it does, in a rhyming climax a rhythmic knock- 
 out blow. 
 
 ODE TO JOURNALISTS. 
 
 Chaloner does say some pleasant things. Take for example the 
 sonnet he calls Journalists. 
 
 All hail ye doughty wielders o' The Pen! 
 
 Ye bold swashbucklers o' the daily press. 
 I hold ye high amongst the sons of men. 
 
 I honor the talent that ye all possess. 
 For talent ye must have or ye'd starve to death. 
 
 On newspapers the fittest sole survives, 
 That race is to the swift the deep of breath. 
 
 The strength o' your good sword-arms saves your lives. 
 The press today's the arena of the world. 
 
 There, fame and gold in time reward each sword, 
 Which, when the daily dust of combat's curl'd, 
 
 Can unerring strike upon the gleaming word ! 
 Once more all hail ! And all prosperity. 
 
 All in the day's work once you "roasted" me. 
 
 SAYS "SCORPIO" IN THERE TO STAY. 
 
 "Scorpio," so its author tells, has come to stay. He promises its 
 appearance at intervals of no certain schedule,- but it will come, and in 
 it will be the sonnetorial criticism of all those big figures, whom, he 
 declares, the press dare not strike. So now Chaloner spends most 
 his time at Merry Mills or on his estate at Roanoke Rapids, N. C. 
 His book is from the Palmetto Press at Roanoke. 
 
 Chaloner has written and done other things besides "Scorpio." He 
 wrote "Four Years Behind the Bars of Bloomingdale," and he married 
 Amelie Rives, the author of "The Quick or the Dead." That mar- 
 riage has been since dissolved and she is now better known as Princess 
 Troubetzkoy. 
 
 Besides his efforts and successes in writing, Mr. Chaloner spends 
 a deal of time in lecturing and studying. He has labored long over 
 the acquirement of a knowledge of lunacy laws, and he still stays out- 
 side of the State of New York under the pain of being arrested as an 
 escaped lunatic the moment he sets foot in there. He takes credit for 
 nothing that is not his, and in that ever-interested prologue tells just 
 whom he considers his masters, thus :
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 We tread humbly after our four masters, to wit: Juvenal, Vol- 
 taire, Swift and Byron. We aim, however lowly, at the strength of 
 Juvenal, the keenness of Voltaire, the fierceness of Swift and the form 
 of Byron. 
 
 ASTOR'S GRANDSON. 
 
 The story of John Armstrong Chaloner could be made to run for 
 columns, even the recital of the last few years of his life. He is a 
 great-great-grandson of the first John Jacob Astor, and his experi- 
 ences are linked with names both highly colored and honored. Just 
 for instance, one might recall his own assertion that Stanford White 
 was the man who lured him to Bloomingdale. 
 
 The alleged "New Vision of Hell," being a spirit message there- 
 from, by Chaloner, gives another vision of the man. It seems that he 
 has gone William James one better. As yet no Philadelphians have 
 come in for the talons of Chaloner's scourge, but he has emphasized 
 the fact that he neither fears anyone nor has any prejudice or partial 
 leanings, so it is fair to assume that such a sonnet will come. 
 
 The "Commercial" 
 
 Buffalo, New York, May S, ISIS 
 
 Scorpion, in Biblical usage, means a scourge, and as used by J. 
 A. Chaloner in his recently issued "Scorpio," the lash must be con- 
 stantly held in mind, for the eccentric author has certainly laid about 
 him with a vim. Practically no class of society or any individual 
 branch of the professions is left immune from his castigation. But 
 not all of Mr. Chaloner's sonnets are of the vitriolic character. In 
 some are shown the tender emotions of the true poet. There is an 
 oddity to the book, which of itself gives it a species of charm, though 
 the absolute truth of some of his arraignments must not be lost sight 
 of. In a lengthy appendix, the writer, through copious newspaper 
 extracts, gives the reader a glimpse of personal history, which at once 
 establishes the fact that "truth is stranger than fiction." The book 
 must be read carefully to be fully appreciated. Its perusal cannot 
 fail to enlist a degree of sympathy for the individual of whose soul 
 torment the contents of the volume appears to be an expression.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 The "Globe and Commercial Advertiser" 
 
 New York City, May 3, 1913 
 
 LIFE AND SONNETS OF "AN ASTOR," 
 
 Not the least interesting part of John Armstrong Chaloner's book 
 of sonnets called '"Scorpio" are the numerous appendices, consisting 
 chiefly of newspaper clippings, in which we may refresh ourselves re- 
 garding the amazing career of the author. We read how this million- 
 aire descendant of the original Astor was "railroaded," as he says, by 
 relatives into Bloomingdale, kept there four years, made a sensational 
 escape, and finally turned up in Virginia again, where he married 
 Amelie Rives, the novelist, and was the prototype for the hero of her 
 famous novel, "The Quick or the Dead." But no novel that Amelie 
 Rives ever wrote is more exciting than Chaloner's own story. 
 
 Although originally published six years ago, American readers are 
 now for the first time permitted to read "Scorpio." In a note which 
 accompanies his book Mr. Chaloner explains why six years ago he sent 
 his book only to England for review. He was unwilling to add to the 
 many troubles he already had that of possible literary attack. Now, 
 however, that he believes that the litigation in which he has been 
 engaged for seventeen years to recover the control of his property is 
 soon to be terminated favorably, he is unafraid. With $1,000,000 back 
 of him, as he says, he dares to hurl his book even among those whom 
 it flays. On his title page is the acrimonious phrase from Tactitus 
 "Keenest is the hatred of kin." 
 
 In the Shakespearean sonnet Mr. Chaloner believes he has found 
 a medium for slaying his enemies equal to the seven-thonged scourge 
 which is reproduced on the cover of his book; equal even to the prize 
 fighter's blows. In the final rhyming couplet especially he finds a knock- 
 out blow that never fails to be admirably effective. Although for the 
 most part classic in form, as the accompanying note advises us, Mr. 
 Chaloner is not squeamish as to the number of syllables ten or eleven 
 to the sonnet line is a matter of indifference to him. He refuses "to 
 skimp his meaning for the sake of smoothness." 
 
 We had already selected for quotation the sonnet on the Opera 
 before we saw that this is also the one that the London Academy 
 quoted in its review, which is pasted on an inside cover of the book. 
 This is sonnet forty- four, called "The Devil's Horseshoe": 
 
 A fecund sight for a Philosopher 
 Rich as Golconda's mine in lessons rare, 
 That gem-bedizen'd "horseshoe" at th' Opera 
 Replete with costly hags, and matrons fair !
 
 12 APPENDIX 
 
 His votaresses doth Mammon there array 
 
 His Amazonian Phalanx dread to face ! 
 
 To Mammon there do they their homage pay 
 
 Spangl'd with jewels, satins, silks, and lace, 
 
 Crones whose old bosoms within their corsets creak. 
 
 Beldames whose slightest glance would fright a horse. 
 
 Ghouls when they speak one hears the grave-mole squeak 
 
 Their escorts parvenus of features coarse. 
 
 A rich array of Luxury and Vice ! 
 
 But spite of them, the music's very nice. 
 
 Those who are fortunate enough to come into possession of a 
 copy of "Scorpio" should keep it. Six times six years from now it is 
 likely to be more valuable than it is at present, since the freak books of 
 today are likely to be the treasured curiosities of tomorrow. It is 
 published by the Palmetto Press, Roanoke Radips, N. C. 
 
 The "Journal" 
 
 Richmond, Virginia, May 10, 1913 
 
 ("Scorpio," a Collection of Sonnets. By John Armstrong Chaloner, 
 Cobham, Va.) 
 
 If Dr. Sam Johnson, who loved "a very good hater," were living 
 in this day and generation he would be more than apt to take a violent 
 fancy to John Armstrong Chaloner, the author of the little book of 
 sonnets which bears the general title "Scorpio," for Mr. Chaloner as- 
 suredly comes in the category of good haters. 
 
 It is probable, too, that Dr. Johnson would feel drawn to the 
 author of "Scorpio" for another reason the fact that the latter, like 
 the great lexicographer, has expressed his dislikes for certain men and 
 things through the medium of satire. 
 
 But the dogmatic old man whom Jimmy Boswell adored long since 
 has turned to dust, so Mr. Chaloner must look for friends in another 
 direction. His unique little book perhaps will gain him many and 
 lose him some ; at any rate, it will focus the attention of the literary 
 world upon him, for the work sparkles with the jewel of originality. 
 
 Whatever crudities it contains and the most biased critic will con- 
 fess that it does not lack them the reader can but admit that the 
 poet has a frank, manly way of hurling his javelins, and as a general 
 thing he makes targets only of those deserving of his wrath.
 
 APPENDIX 13 
 
 It is not the purpose of this reviewer to explain why Mr. Chaloner 
 has grievances he himself does this through statements embodied in 
 the appendix of his book but we cannot refrain from borrowing a 
 word or so from his prologue. 
 
 This prose production makes stimulating reading; it is a defiant, 
 mordant thing with a flavor quite its own. 
 
 The poet expresses the belief that the press, for the most part, 
 is muzzled through monetary considerations, and, therefore, he thinks 
 a bold spirit, who has no need to worry about dollars and cents, will 
 find a wide, wide field for criticism if he cares to do some tilting on the 
 free lance plan. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner proposes to take this job upon himself, for he is 
 "indifferent alike to advertisers, leaders of high finance, trade unions and 
 the Church." He then announces that he intends to tread humbly after 
 four masters of wit Juvenal, Voltaire, Swift and Byron. This state- 
 ment is followed by the assertion that he backs no "isms" or new de- 
 partures, and detests cranky theories as thoroughly as he detests cranks. 
 Last of all, Mr. Chaloner explains that his medium of aggressiveness 
 will be an imitation of the Shakespearean sonnet, which, ending as 
 it does in a rhyming climax, affords him an opportunity to get in vari- 
 ous and divers "rhythmic knock-out blows." 
 
 In his salutatory the sonnet of the book the poet says: 
 
 The nameless folly of the human race, 
 
 Its cruel selfishness and trackless guile, 
 Make me asham'd at sight of human face 
 
 That stamping ground for treachery and wile. 
 
 A moment later in true classical fashion he calls on Apollo to help 
 him in his undertaking, and then, as additional auxiliaries, he invokes 
 the Muses "lovely companions of the Flaming God." Pretty soon 
 after this Mr. Chaloner gets down to business and once he starts his 
 blood circulating, he never allows the dust of the arena to settle. After 
 trumpeting a sort of rhythmic challenge to Swinburne and Kipling 
 who, notwithstanding their virtues, have been detected in certain poetic 
 misdemeanors, Mr. Chaloner sends up an Isaiah-like wail concerning 
 "Columbia" which is couched in these pungent words: 
 "My country 'tis of thee" I do not sing. 
 
 You're in too sad a plight, believe me, dear, 
 For plaudits to have aught but a false ring 
 
 The shallow clang of counterfeit to th' ear. 
 The courage of your soldiers all men know; 
 Their daring and their patience all have seen.
 
 I 4 APPENDIX 
 
 Your sailors' marksmanship full well doth show 
 
 How accurate their discipline hath been ; 
 But justice in thy land hath gone astray; 
 
 Believe me, dear, she wanders from the path 
 And like a drunken harlot reels her way 
 
 Along the broad road that meets The People's wrath. 
 That your Legislatures and your courts you purge 
 
 "Sweet land" my land "of Liberty" I urge. 
 
 Pretty drastic, that, and not altogether unlike political literature ! 
 Something else of the same nature, which may not be mal apropos at 
 this season, appears under the caption "The Initiative and Referendum," 
 which contains these lines : 
 
 The People's will is kill'd by the humdrum 
 
 Monotony p' the venality o' fat 
 
 Bribe-gorging law-makers, State and National. 
 
 It needs hardly be explained, after the reproduction of these 
 samples of verse, that the poet is democratic to the core. He espouses 
 the cause of the working people 
 
 "To whose strong hands earth renders up her spoil" 
 
 and likewise he has some kind things to say of journalists. Although 
 his preface has alluded to editors whose utterances are circumscribed 
 by cash considerations, he says : "The press today's the arena of the 
 world." On newspapers, he says, the fittest sole survives, for that race 
 is to the swift the deep of breath. 
 
 "High society" and alas, the ladies of this upper world are 
 savagely assailed by the poet, who does not mince words in describing 
 its rottenness. He likewise grows vitriolic in his attack on Dr. Osier, 
 the man who would relegate the old chaps to the rear. Perhaps the 
 individual who most of all feels the severity of the satirist is G. 
 Bernard Shaw, the playwright, who has won Chaloner's everlasting 
 dislike by his contemptuous references to Shakespeare. The poet calls 
 him "that Irish blatherskite rude Bernard Shaw," and concludes one 
 of his sonnets that entitled "A Bogus Bashaw of Letters" with this 
 "knock-out blow" : 
 
 A mere Grub Street critic, he should avoid 
 Aught more artistic than the role of joker. 
 You carp at Shakespeare, you shock-headed lout. 
 Before I've done, I'll turn you inside out.
 
 APPENDIX 15 
 
 The casual reader, after perusing such threats as that, might think 
 it a wise plan to put the poet under peace bond, but a little more in- 
 vestigation will show that there are moments when Chaloner is as 
 placid as a Swiss lake. In these moods he writes sonnets which lack 
 the martial ring and substitutes therefor specimens of word painting 
 that are truly beautiful, to say nothing of thoughts that are stately 
 in their dignity. 
 
 Virgil could not surpass the poem on "Midsummer," which de- 
 scribes a winged army of fierce-working bees, while the sonnet on 
 "Butterflies" is the very soul of poetry. Indeed, Mr. Chaloner, in his 
 gentler moods will be regarded by some as at his best, _ though the 
 critic of the London Academy admires him most when he is fiercest. 
 
 However great may be the diversity of taste in this matter, it must 
 be admitted that the author of "Scorpio" is no common rhymster, and 
 that his verses are nothing if not entertaining. And perhaps the reason 
 for his aggressive verses may be found in the following lines entitled 
 "Oppression" : 
 
 Oppression was the rod that struck the rock 
 And loos'd the fiery floodgates of my tongue. 
 
 The click behind me of the prison lock 
 Unlock'd the fetters that had kept it dumb. 
 
 The body free, then was the tongue enchain'd ; 
 The body 'prison'd, then the tongue sprung free.
 
 16 APPENDIX 
 
 The "Virginian" 
 
 Richmond, Virginia, April SO, 1913 
 
 Pay Respects to "Fourth Estate" 
 
 CHALONER "HAILS" AND PREDICTS FAME AND GOLD WILL COME. 
 
 Inside knowledge of "the newspaper game" is displayed by John 
 Armstrong Chaloner, in one of the poems in "Scorpio," the book of 
 sonnets, which just now is greatly interesting the smart set of New 
 York, whose foibles and vices it flays. 
 
 After paying his respects to society at the Metropolitan Opera 
 House in his poem, "The Devil's Horseshoe," and after epitomizing 
 the life of John L. Sullivan in another metrical effusion, he takes off 
 his hat to the working members of the "Fourth Estate" and says 
 "Hail !" 
 
 Few men in other walks of life have had such intimate relations 
 with the newspaper world as Chaloner. The many vicissitudes of his 
 fortunes, and his activities since he came to reside in Virginia have 
 kept him in print and have brought him into close contact with the 
 men who gather and edit the news. Whether he was righting to have 
 something "kept out of the papers," or whether he was arguing to have 
 something "put in," the author of "Who's Loony Now?" got close to 
 the powers that be, and every newspaper office in Richmond has known 
 his presence. 
 
 Here's his greeting to the newspaper men. He calls it "Journal- 
 ists," although such things are almost extinct in the United States, and 
 thrive chiefly in London and Paris. 
 
 All hail, ye doughty wielders o' The Pen ! 
 
 Ye bold swashbucklers o' the daily press. 
 I hold ye high amongst the sons of men ; 
 
 I honor the talent that ye all possess. 
 For talent ye must have or ye'd starve to death. 
 
 On newspapers the fittest sole survives. 
 The race is to the swift the deep of breath. 
 
 The strength o' your good sword-arms saves your lives. 
 The press today's the arena of the world. 
 
 There, fame and gold in time reward each sword. 
 Which, when the daily dust of combat's curl'd. 
 
 Can unerring strike upon the gleaming word ! 
 Once more all hail! And all prosperity. 
 
 All in the day's work once you "roasted" me.
 
 APPENDIX 17 
 
 The "American" 
 
 Baltimore, Maryland, May 12, 1913 
 
 "SCORPIO." 
 
 ("Scorpio." Sonnets by John Armstrong Chaloner, Published by the 
 Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C.) 
 
 The author prides himself on the fact that he is a hard and terrible 
 hitter. Indeed, he assures us that he has come to the conclusion that 
 you can put a wicked man "to sleep" with a sonnet in pretty much the 
 same way that a prize fighter puts his opponent to sleep with a finished 
 blow. And not only does Mr. Chaloner believe in what we may term 
 the "sonnetorial fist," but he believes also in whips and scorpions, for 
 the cover of his book is decorated with an angry-looking, seven-thonged 
 scourge and he dubs the whole effort "Scorpio." 
 
 The "News and Observer" 
 
 Raleigh, North Carolina, June 3, 1913 
 
 MR. CHALONER'S BOOK OF SONNETS. 
 
 Mr. John Armstrong Chaloner, of "Merry Mills," Cobham, Va., 
 has brought out a new book, a collection of sonnets under the title 
 "Scorpio." Mr. Chaloner, who has devoted himself to a reformation 
 of the lunacy laws in various States, is remembered as a visitor to 
 Raleigh during the 1913 session of the North Carolina General As- 
 sembly. 
 
 The "Courier-Journal" 
 
 Louisville, Kentucky, Hay 10, 1913 
 
 ("Scorpio." By J. A. Chaloner. Published by Palmetto Press, 
 Roanoke Rapids, N. C.) 
 
 Sinewy, thoughtful sonnets, stinging to the reader, with occasional 
 ironies. Affairs and men are the themes handled in virile fashion.
 
 i8 APPENDIX 
 
 The "Times" 
 
 Louisville, Kentucky, May 30, 1913 
 
 ("Scorpio," by J. A. Chaloner, Roanoke Rapids, N. C. : The Palmetto 
 Press.) 
 
 Mr. Chaloner has used the sonnet to flay some personal enemies 
 and a few public evils, which he does in a very successful way. In fact 
 he gives them some whips, scorpions and knock-out blows with a 
 vengeance. The volume was brought out in 1907, but on the account 
 of some personal difficulties with many enemies, he was not able to get 
 it before the public until the late date. 
 
 The "News-Scimitar" 
 
 Memphis, Tennessee, May 7, 1913 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner has published another book containing 
 several acrid essays and forty-seven sequential sonnets, in which he 
 deftly removes the epidermis of all those whom he imagines have ever 
 done him a wrong. Many of the lines are really clever, and in read- 
 ing them one cannot escape the conclusion that no matter how bitter 
 he may be he has been given ample reason for it. 
 
 The "News" 
 
 Savannah, Georgia, May SB, 1913 
 
 ("Scorpio." By John Armstrong Chaloner, Roanoke Rapids, N. C. : 
 Palmetto Press. Cloth; price, $1.50, postpaid.) 
 
 A collection of sonnets. Mr. Chaloner's personal history would 
 make his sonnets interesting if they were not so in themselves. Those 
 who know the history should find the sonnets and the notes upon them 
 exceedingly entertaining. 
 
 The "Telegram" 
 
 Portland, Oregon, May 10, 1913 
 
 ("Scorpio." By J. A. Chaloner. Price, $1.50 net. Published by the 
 Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C.) 
 
 This is number one of a quarterly publication of sonnets in the 
 Shakespearean form, "ending in a rhyming climax a rhythmic knock-
 
 APPENDIX 19 
 
 out blow." This form of sonnet appeals to the author as "a medium 
 for flaying fools and rogues." The author in a most diverting pro- 
 logue says: "As there are over a million dollars in cold cash behind 
 the author, in the shape of property in his name, and as he has no 
 intention of practicing law nor devoting himself strictly to business, 
 it should be evident to the shortest-sighted reader that 'Scorpio' has 
 come to stay." The sonnets are vigorous, not to say violent, and their 
 topics range. An appendix contains references to the alleged rail- 
 roading of the author to Bloomingdale Asylum, and a bitter allusion to 
 the hatred of kin quoted from Tacitus indicates his point of view. 
 Perhaps the volume is intended as an answer to the justly celebrated 
 question, "Who's looney now?" 
 
 The "Oregonian" 
 
 Portland, Oregon, May 18, 1913 
 
 ("Scorpio," by J. A. Chaloner, $1.50, Palmetto Press, Roanoke 
 Rapids, N. C.) 
 
 Mr. Chaloner is the hero of an escape from Bloomingdale Asylum, 
 New York, and one of the most sensational of writers and poets. He 
 is rich in money matters, is his own "boss," and was a friend of the 
 notorious Stanford White, who was killed by Harry Thaw. The son- 
 nets extend to 93 pages, are written in near-vitriol, and land sledge- 
 hammer blows at enemies and others. 
 
 The "San Francisco Chronicle" 
 
 San Francisco, California, May 18, 1913 
 
 "SCORPIO." 
 (Roanoke Rapids, N. C.; Palmetto Press; price, $1.50.) 
 
 "Scorpio" is a very apt title for the collection of forty-seven son- 
 nets issued by John Armstrong Chaloner. Most of the poems are 
 more fully explained in a very lengthy appendix setting forth the facts 
 which justify the author in using language generally reserved for 
 occasions when no one happens to be listening. Chaloner observes 
 that he is treading humbly after his four masters Juvenal, Voltaire,
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Swift and Byron. "We aim however lowly at the strength of Juve- 
 nal, the keenness of Voltaire, the fierceness of Swift, and the form 
 of Byron." That he attains much of his aim cannot be denied, since, 
 if short on the strength of Juvenal and the form of Byron, he is 
 long on the fierceness of Swift. He admires Swinburne, Shakespeare 
 and John L. Sullivan, but is death on Dr. Osier and Bernard Shaw. 
 The book must be read to be appreciated. 
 
 The "State" 
 
 Columbia, South Carolina, May 10, 1913 
 
 We have received a book of poems from Colonel John Armstrong 
 Chaloner, and from one of his lyric gems we quote the following 
 stanza : 
 
 "All hail, ye doughty wielders o' the pen, 
 Ye bold swashbucklers o' the daily press; 
 I hold ye high among the sons of men, 
 I honor the talent that ye all possess." 
 
 We care not what those silly New York courts hold. Colonel 
 Chaloner is as sane as he ever was. 
 
 The "Journal" 
 
 Lincoln, Nebraska, May 7, 1913 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, of Roanoke Rapids, N. C, is a new 
 one on us. He seeks favor as a satirist, and does so in a book of 
 sonnets about the size of an academic dictionary, which the Palmetto 
 Press offers to a waiting world at $1.50 per copy, postpaid. In a some- 
 what copious appendix we gather the fact, or intimation, that the poet 
 has suffered in his day, and is not feeling as well satisfied now as one 
 should who admits he is financially on easy street, if not mentally so. 
 Without using any name, he implies that due to a conspiracy, care- 
 fully planned and skilfully executed, he was lured from his old Vir- 
 ginia home and landed in a New York bughouse from which he made 
 a get-away after four years of unmerited confinement. The full par- 
 ticulars will appear in another book but that is another matter. No 
 wonder John bumps the bunch in his salutatory after this fashion :
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 "The nameless folly of the human race, 
 Its cruel selfishness and trackless guile, 
 Make me ashamed at sight of human face- 
 That stamping ground for treachery and wile. 
 The smirking smile of callow, empty youth, 
 The ripe pomposity of hoary age, 
 The shaded gleam of manhood's lustful tooth, 
 Each plays its part upon its petty stage. 
 Seduction, lying, thieving, each in turn 
 A murder here and there and then a rape 
 Each needing only that temptation burn 
 And hold fair chance of ultimate escape. 
 Exceptions to said rule exist, 'tis true; 
 No such exception doth exist in you."
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 The "Evening World" 
 
 New York City, April 18, 1913 
 
 Poet Chaloner's New Verses Hold Some 
 "Hot Stuff!" 
 
 'BARD OF BLOOMINGDALE" TAKES HOT RAP AT ROCKE- 
 FELLER AND OTHERS. 
 
 HE CALLS IT "SCORPIO/ 
 
 LAUDS JOHN L. SULLIVAN AND TAKES CAUSTIC FLING AT "DIAMOND 
 HORSESHOE." 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, once the poet laureate of Bloomingdale, 
 but in later years content to be only the Roaring Rhapsodist of Roanoke 
 Rapids, N. C., has pushed George Bernard Shaw under the pile driver 
 and tripped Rudyard Kipling onto the skids. Undisputed champion of 
 "the rhyming knock-out" Mr. Chaloner has just sent broadcast from 
 his comfortable retreat in the Old Dominion his trenchant volume of 
 cubist verses bearing the significant title "Scorpio." 
 
 Mr. Chaloner will be remembered in New York as the author of 
 that neat little brochure "Who's Looney Now?" dedicated to the at- 
 that-time-husband of Mile. Lina Cavalieri, and of the more recent work 
 on exploration entitled "Hell." This latest message from Roanoke was 
 published in England in 1908, but because of several pending suits in 
 American courts which might be, according to the poet's own admis- 
 sions, affected disadvantageously by the appearance of his verses, 
 America has had to wait in patience until the present moment. 
 
 AUTHOR TAKES A HOT RAP AT MR. ROCKEFELLER. 
 
 It may readily be seen from a perusal of the "Prologue" to the 
 Chaloner sheaf of sonnets, that the Roaring Rhapsodist of Roanoke 
 Rapids, N. C., possesses nothing but charity for all mankind, and that 
 he maintains a dairy for the milk of human kindness on his estate. 
 For, touching upon the inspiration for his songs, Mr. Chaloner refers 
 thus to a well known philanthropist :
 
 APPENDIX 23 
 
 "We shall take pleasure in pointing out how that bald-headed 
 old rogue, Rockefeller, is attempting two impossible things, to wit : 
 First to throw dust in the eyes of the public by prodigious gifts to 
 education, with the veiled hope of educating the rising generation to 
 his nefarious way of thinking; and the flaring, flaunting, brazen-faced 
 hope of buying the public's forgiveness." 
 
 Since there is a million dollars cold cash behind the author, and 
 he is publishing "Scorpio" at his own expense take it from his own 
 assurance in the prologue this book of verse* is "a medium for 
 flaying fools that in concentration, swiftness of action and complete- 
 ness of results beats any other known form of satirical flagellation." 
 
 HE PHILOSOPHIZES ON THE "DIAMOND HORSESHOE." 
 
 The sweet singer, who once made the mournful halls of Blooming- 
 dale to resound with his gladsome lilt that was before he went away 
 from Bloomingdale without leaving his P. P. C. card says right at 
 the beginning of his foreword that there have only been four other 
 "masters" who possessed the metrical punch and rhyming knock-out 
 that are his : Juvenal, Voltaire, Swift and Byron. 
 
 Now to this list add the name of John Armstrong Chaloner, a 
 member of this club, who will meet all comers at the fourteen-line 
 sonnet, Shakespeare rules and no hitting eleventh syllable of the son- 
 net line. 
 
 Here's a gentle bit of kindly observation and unctuous philosophy 
 drawn from observation at the Metropolitan Opera House in season. 
 
 THE DEVIL'S HORSE-SHOE. 
 
 A fecund sight for a Philosopher 
 
 Rich as Golconda's mine in lessons rare 
 That gem-bedizzen'd "horse-shoe" at th' Opera 
 
 Replete with costly hags and matrons fair! 
 His votaresses doth Mammon there array 
 
 His Amazonian Phalanx dread to face! 
 To Mammon there do they their homage pay, 
 
 Spangl'd with jewels, satins, silks and lace. 
 Crones whose old bosoms within their corsets creak; 
 
 Beldames whose slightest glance would fright a horse. 
 Ghouls when they speak one hears the grave-mole squeak 
 
 Their escorts parvenus of features coarse. 
 A rich array of Luxury and Vice ! 
 
 But spite of them, the music's very nice. 
 
 "This should read "the Shakspearean form of sonnet.'
 
 24 APPENDIX 
 
 JOHN L. SULLIVAN GETS A BIG BOOST. 
 
 That the former brother-in-law of Lina Cavalieri is no meek and 
 milky molly-coddle is graphically demonstrated by his sonnet in honor 
 of the nuptials of John L. Sullivan, a well-known sporting figure. 
 Under the title, "The Apotheosis or the Dead Game Sport's Lament," 
 the roaring Roanoker trills this diapason lay: 
 
 O ! for a day of Lawrence Sullivan ! 
 
 Just one day of just one hour nothing more. 
 
 "Jeff," "Fitz," Ruhlin, Sharkey at four rounds per man, 
 
 In succession sev'rally would bite the floor ! 
 
 Each into sweet oblivion then would float ! 
 
 Propell'd by John's strong arm which ne'er did tire. 
 
 Each in John L. would then his master note 
 
 John L. the paragon of "P. R.'s" empire ! 
 
 For twelve years he fought as man ne'er fought before; 
 
 As John L. fought, ne'er will man fight again ; 
 
 For with him the love of battle counted more 
 
 Than what rules nowadays the love of gain. 
 
 John L. ! Th' Imperial Roman, now I sing ! 
 
 Great John L. Sullivan, the Prize-Ring King !
 
 APPENDIX 25 
 
 The "Evening Journal" 
 
 New Yorfc City, April 28, 1913 
 
 Chaloner Flays N. Y. Society in Book of Verses 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, author of the famous quip, "Who's 
 looney now?" and a number of other snappy productions, has writ- 
 ten a book that will interest New Yorkers because it gets its action 
 from the gilded circle, whence Chaloner was sent to Bloomingdale. 
 "Scorpio," a book of sonnets that are modeled after the work of the 
 late William Shakespeare, is his latest offering. 
 
 Of course, Shakespeare has no kick coming, because everybody 
 knows that he rewrote Richard III from More's history, and the 
 documents of a cardinal, and always went to the "morgue" (news- 
 paper term for reference department) when he wanted the features of 
 a new play. 
 
 But that is neither here nor there. It is the "Scorpio" that stings, 
 and back at Merry Mills, Cobham, ya., Chaloner is enjoying the swish- 
 ing of the tail of his literary animal. After Chaloner got out of 
 Bloomingdale half a dozen years ago, he went to Philadelphia, where 
 he had the officials of a sanitarium observe him for six months. Then 
 he took their word that he was sane, and went to Virginia to live. 
 
 In his new work he pays particular attention to the smart set at 
 the Metropolitan Opera House under the title "The Devil's Horse- 
 shoe," which is intended but dimly to becloud the golden horseshoe. 
 Thus he sings : 
 
 A fecund sight for the philosopher- 
 Rich as Golconda's mine in lessons rare 
 That gem bedizn'd "horseshoe" at th' Opera. 
 
 Replete with costly hags and matrons fair! 
 His votaresses doth Mammon there array, 
 
 His Amazonian Phalanx dread to face ! 
 To Mammon there do they their homage pay; 
 
 Spangl'd with jewels, satins, silks and lace. 
 Crones whose old bosoms in their corsets creak; 
 
 Beldames whose slightest glance would fright a horse: 
 Ghouls when they speak, one hears the grave mole squeak 
 
 Their escorts parvenus of feature coarse. 
 A rich array of Luxury and Vice! 
 
 But spite of them, the music's very nice.
 
 26 APPENDIX 
 
 Mr. Chaloner uses the editorial form of expression in his book and 
 "we" lambast the everlasting lights out of everything in sight. In his 
 prologue he says: 
 
 "We are guided by the same every-day principles of the educated 
 man in the street, who has happened to run across a medium for 
 flaying fools and rogues that, in concentration, swiftness of action, and 
 completeness of result, beats any other form of satirical flagellation. 
 We allude, of course, to the Shakespearean form of sonnet, ending, 
 as it does, in a rhyming climax a rhythmic knock-out blow." 
 
 Chaloner does say some pleasant things. Take for example the 
 sonnet he calls Journalists. 
 
 All hail ye doughty wielders o' The Pen ! 
 
 Ye bold swashbucklers o' the daily press. 
 I hold ye high amongst the sons of men. 
 
 I honor the talent that ye all possess. 
 For talent ye must have or ye'd starve to death. 
 
 On newspapers the fittest sole survives. 
 That race is to the swift the deep of breath. 
 
 The strength o' your good sword-arms saves your lives. 
 The press today's the arena of the world. 
 
 There, fame and gold in time reward each sword. 
 Which, when the daily dust of combat's curl'd, 
 
 Can unerring strike upon the gleaming word ! 
 Once more all hail! And all prosperity. 
 
 All in the day's work once you "roasted" me. 
 
 Chaloner promises to strike frequently at the prominent figures in 
 New York society, and says that his book is but the first edition of a 
 regular venture. 
 
 77t "Morning Telegraph" 
 
 New York City, May 5, 1913 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, in his ode to John L. Sullivan, writes ; 
 
 O! for a day of Lawrence Sullivan! 
 
 Just one day of just one hour nothing more. 
 Jeff, Fitz, Ruhlin, Sharkey at four rounds per man, 
 
 In succession seV rally would bite the floor! 
 Each into sweet oblivion then would float, 
 
 Propell'd by John's strong arm, which ne'er did tire.
 
 APPENDIX 27 
 
 Each in John L. would then his master note 
 
 John L., the paragon of "P. R.'s" empire ! 
 For twelve years he fought as man ne'er fought before; 
 
 As John L. fought ne'er will man fight again ; 
 For with him the love of battle counted more 
 
 Than what rules nowadays the love of gain. 
 John L. ! Th' Imperial Roman, now I sing! 
 
 Great John L. Sullivan, the Prize-Ring King! 
 
 It's now up to some local poet to counter with a hymn to Abe 
 Attell.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 The "American" 
 
 New York City, April 29, 1913 
 
 J. A. Chaloner of * Who's Looney?' Fame Drops 
 Into Poetry 
 
 His MUSE STIRRED INTO LIVELY GALLOP BY THOUGHTS OF JOHN L. 
 
 SULLIVAN. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, author of the famous "Who's Looney 
 Now?" which he dedicated to his brother, then husband of Lina 
 Cavalieri, has produced a volume of verse under the title "Scorpio." 
 
 A bitter arraignment of Rockefeller is followed by the following 
 eulogy of John L. Sullivan, under title of "The Apotheosis or a Dead 
 Game Sport's Lament" 
 
 Oh! for a day of Lawrence Sullivan! 
 
 Just one day of just one hour nothing more. 
 "Jeff," "Fitz," Ruhlin, Sharkey at four rounds per man, 
 
 In succession sev'rally would bite the floor! 
 Each into sweet oblivion then would float, 
 
 Propell'd by John's strong arm which ne'er did tire. 
 Each in John L. would then his master note 
 
 John L., the paragon of "P. R.'s" empire! 
 For twelve years he fought as man never fought before ; 
 
 As John L. fought, ne'er will man fight again; 
 For with him the love of battle counted more 
 
 Than what rules now-a-days the love of gain. 
 John L. ! Th' Imperial Roman, now I sing! 
 
 Great John L. Sullivan, the Prize-Ring King!
 
 APPENDIX 29 
 
 The "Washington Times" 
 
 Washington, Dictrict of Columbia, May 31, 1913 
 
 HERE'S A BOOK. 
 
 ("Scorpio," by John Armstrong Chaloner, published by the Palmetto 
 Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C.) 
 
 Any one wishing information of any kind upon John Armstrong 
 Chaloner, whether it be on his lineage, or concerned with his most 
 sensational newspaper career, or in relation to his ability as an author, 
 all is to be found between the covers of the little book of sonnets 
 called "Scorpio." These sonnets constitute the main body of the book, 
 while an explanatory prologue and a generous appendix give such in- 
 formation upon the author and his works as the reader is not able to 
 glean from the sonnets. 
 
 The prologue is really a word to critics, special attention being 
 given to a definition of the press, and to the purpose and reasons of the 
 author for writing the sonnets. 
 
 The appendix, of forty-nine pages, contains reprints from news- 
 papers in which the actions of the author have been sensationalized, 
 explanations of the sonnets in detail, and divers other bits of interest 
 concerning the life, ancestors and publications of John Armstrong 
 Chaloner. 
 
 Of the poems and their style the author has said : "We aim . . . 
 at the strength of Juvenal, the keenness of Voltaire, the fierceness of 
 Swift and the form of Byron." Like many others, an intense personal 
 grudge against the world in general, prevents other than a partial suc- 
 cess for the author. Some of the lighter sonnets, on "Butterflies" and 
 "Midsummer" for instance, attain a much higher order than those 
 on drastic subjects. A consistent over use of the apostrophe is unneces- 
 sary and annoying. 
 
 "The Academy," London, England, says : " . . . his book is 
 well worth possessing." 
 
 It is.
 
 30 APPENDIX 
 
 The "World" 
 
 New York City, May S$, 1913 
 
 Chaloner, to War on Lunacy Laws, Wants More 
 Cash 
 
 RICH FUGITIVE FROM ASYLUM WILL ASK COURT FOR 
 
 $15,000 INCOME INCREASE SO HE CAN 
 
 SPREAD HIS BOOKS. 
 
 HE'D ALSO SPEAK IN His OWN MASS MEETING. 
 
 CONTEMPLATES MAGAZINE IN WHICH TO AIR IDEAS RAPS HIS BROTHERS, 
 THE CHANLERS. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, who is legally insane in New York and 
 legally sane in Virginia, will break into the courts once more when his 
 attorney, Frederick A. Ware, of No. 43 Cedar Street, files today in 
 the Supreme Court a petition asking that Chaloner's income be in- 
 creased from $17,000 to $32,000 annually. 
 
 Chaloner has been fighting for one thing or another ever since he 
 escaped from the Bloomingdale Asylum in 1900 and fled to his beautiful 
 Virginia estate, Merry Mills, at Cobham. 
 
 After setting forth that he is unquestionably "the authority upon 
 lunacy legislation throughout the world," and attaching to the papers 
 his book "Lunacy Law of the World," along with a large number of 
 press clippings lauding the book, the petitioner states he is a great 
 grandson of the first John Jacob Astor, and gives a voluminous account 
 of his troubles. 
 
 ACCUSES TWO OF HIS BROTHERS. 
 
 He declares he was spirited to Bloomingdale by the late Stanford 
 White, und alleges his brothers, Winthrop Astor Chanler and Lewis 
 Stuyvesant Chanler, were parties to the plan. Chaloner is particu- 
 larly incensed because at Bloomingdale he was forced to pay $100 a 
 week for "a two-room cell with bath attached" and $30 a month for 
 an Irish keeper.
 
 APPENDIX 31 
 
 Apparently with the idea of impressing the court that he should 
 be adjudged sane in New York as well as in Virginia, the petitioner 
 quotes innumerable authorities on insanity and a multitude of court 
 decisions on his own and other cases. Once he compares his case to 
 that of Christ,* but notes that Christ had a chance to defend him- 
 self, whereas he, Chaloner, was prevented from doing so by our 
 insanity laws. 
 
 NAMES BOOKS HE HAS WRITTEN. 
 
 Getting down to the real reason why he must have an increased 
 allowance, Chaloner says he is the author of several books which would 
 have a wide circulation provided he could properly advertise them. 
 One of these is his brief in the case of Chaloner against Thomas T. 
 Sherman, a committee of his person and estate, and another "Four 
 Years Behind the Bars of Bloomingdale." Then there is "a book of 
 sonnets, mostly satires," which came from the press in 1908. "Hell" 
 and "Scopio" were later efforts. 
 
 "Said books did not have, and could not have, any sale," the peti- 
 tion cites, "for the _reason that your petitioner was the only one who 
 could advertise them, and this he did not have money to do. This 
 learned court knows that unless one can bring his wares to the notice 
 of buyers, buyers will not notice said wares. Therefore, without ad- 
 vertising there is no possible sale for any publication whatever." 
 
 "ROBBED OF SIXTEEN YEARS OF LIFE." 
 
 Having been robbed of sixteen years of his life by the "villainous 
 actions of his family," Chaloner holds he is entitled to those mental, 
 intellectual and physical comforts he has failed to gain, though _ he 
 has battled hard enough to acquire them. The mental and physical 
 comforts desired he names as the financial means to sell the books 
 already published, and cash with which to bring forth a second edition 
 of his work on lunacy. The entire first edition, he sets forth, was 
 absorbed by leading libraries of the country or distributed among 
 leading lawyers of the author's acquaintance. 
 
 "Your petitioner," he says, "formed a solemn vow while in Bloom- 
 ingdale that he would devote every year of his life upon his escape 
 therefrom and every dollar of his income to the purging of the foul 
 ways of lunacy legislation in, sad to tell, about 40 per cent, of the 
 States of this great nation." No better way to accomplish this end 
 occurs to him than to advertise his book on lunacy. This having been 
 accomplished and he having defeated Mr. Sherman in a case pending 
 
 Legal aspects only.
 
 32 APPENDIX 
 
 in the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, he purposes to travel 
 about the country addressing legislative committees. 
 
 Concerning "Four Years Behind the Bars," which he wishes to 
 spread broadcast for the good it will do, he says : 
 
 "Nothing can prove more clearly to the lay mind the dangers to 
 liberty, property, health and happiness lurking in the shadows of illegal 
 lunacy laws than this counterpart of Charles Reade's epochal novel, 
 'Very Hard Cash,' which revolutionized the treatment of lunatics in- 
 side the insane asylums of Great Britain and purged them of brutality. 
 
 "In this connection your petitioner would greatly like to cultivate 
 his newly discovered talent of shooting folly as it flies, in correctly 
 built sonnets. The times are not such as to be devoid of marks for 
 the satirist's darts, and your petitioner respectfully prays the court 
 to furnish him with funds, from his own accumulated income, to 
 push forward the said enterprise." 
 
 Chaloner says that as soon as he wins his case against Mr. Sher- 
 man he will finance mass meetings and publish a fortnightly magazine 
 in which he will denounce the rich young men of Richmond who mis- 
 treat small girls. He knows he can hold an audience, for since the 
 first of last September he has addressed meetings in Thompson Hall 
 and the Rex Theatre in Richmond. These assemblages he has called 
 "The Richmond Mass Meeting Club." The club, he thinks, should be 
 made permanent with money behind it that "public abuses and public 
 rascals could be flayed fearlessly and frequently and the flayings be 
 duly spread on printed records to be disseminated at a nominal price, 
 or even given free, among the plain voters of the community." 
 
 OTHER CITIES WOULD ADOPT IDEA. 
 
 It occurs to Chaloner, so he states in the petition, that the mass 
 meeting club would go a good way toward supplementing the work of 
 the police, the detectives and the public prosecutor. This idea, he is 
 confident, would spread to other cities and would be a huge success. 
 
 In summing up, Chaloner maintains that even were he not to 
 advertise his books, his present allowance is inadequate for him to 
 live in a manner to which birth, education and fortune have made 
 him accustomed. He states he has two establishments to keep up a 
 town house in Richmond, where he spends half of his time, and Merry 
 Mills, where he spends the other half. He has found that the labor 
 of supervising his case against Mr. Sherman and looking after seven 
 libel suits he has brought against newspapers in three cities "has 
 dragged him down so that his health demands frequent changes of 
 scene and absence from law books." Furthermore, he has had an 
 affection of the spine since he was confined in Bloomingdale.
 
 APPENDIX 33 
 
 CONSIDERS HIS DEMAND MODEST. 
 
 If he is granted the increased allowance, Chaloner will, he says, 
 spend one-half the first year on himself and pay off his debts with 
 the other half. As there is a surplus of income amounting to $i7',ooo, 
 he declares the matter can be easily arranged. He considers his de- 
 mands modest in view of the fact that from the time of his majority 
 until his troubles began he had an income of $24,000 a year. 
 
 Chaloner's share in his father's estate was originally given as 
 $1,500,000. He tells the court his property comprises real estate 
 stocks, promissory notes, mortgages, claims and a paid-up life insur- 
 ance policy. This was derived from his father, his grandmother, 
 Elizabeth Stuyvesant Chanler, and his grandaunt, Laura Astor Delano. 
 The twenty-seven pieces of realty include No. 298 Broadway, which 
 is subject to a mortgage; a villa site of 365 acres in Rhinebeck and 
 a small farm in Dutchess County. There are also the 4OO-acre farm 
 at Cobham and a 3OO-acre farm at Roanoke Rapids, N. C. 
 
 AMELIE RIVES DIVORCED HIM. 
 
 In 1888 Chaloner married Amelie Rives. They separated in 
 seven years and in 1895 Mrs. Chaloner was given a divorce on the 
 ground of incompatibility of temperament. A year later she mar- 
 ried Prince Troubetzkoy, a painter and member of an old Russian 
 family.
 
 34 APPENDIX 
 
 The "American" 
 
 New York City, May %k, 1913 
 
 Chaloner Asks Funds to Advertise Books 
 
 FORMER JOHN ARMSTRONG CHANLER WANTS INCOME INCREASED TO 
 $32,000. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, through his attorney, will file in the 
 Supreme Court today an application asking that his income be in- 
 creased from $17,000 to $32,000. Chaloner is legally insane in New 
 York State and sane in Virginia. Since his escape years ago from 
 Bloomingdale Asylum he changed his name from Chanler to Chaloner. 
 
 In his application he states that he needs the money to advertise 
 the books he has written, and that is the only way they can be brought 
 before the public. The books include his views on lunacy and lunacy 
 laws and a book of poems. 
 
 The "Times" 
 
 Jacksonville, Florida, May STt, 1913 
 
 Another crusade is proclaimed in a country full of Holy Wars : 
 John Armstrong Chaloner will make war on our lunacy laws ! 
 
 The "Telegraph" 
 
 New York City, May 25, 1913 
 
 Mr. John Armstrong Chaloner requests that his income be increased 
 from $17,000 to $32,000 a year. This ought to enable him to double his 
 publicity expenditures.
 
 APPENDIX 35 
 
 The "Sim" 
 
 Baltimore, Maryland, June I, 1913 
 
 Chaloner Needs Money 
 
 WILL ASK THAT HIS $16,000 YEARLY INCOME BE DOUBLED. 
 
 To IMPROVE INSANITY LAWS. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "WHO'S LOONEY NOW?" WANTS TO REPUBLISH HIS POEMS- 
 BACKS GIRLS' CLUB. 
 
 NEW YORK, June I. John Armstrong Chaloner, author of "Who's 
 Looney Now?", will appear by counsel tomorrow in the special term 
 of the Supreme Court and move to have his annual income of $16,000 
 doubled. 
 
 Frederick A. Ware, a former Assemblyman, is acting as Chaloner's 
 attorney, and will make the motion on the ground that his client's 
 estate is increasing every year, and now earns a yearly income of 
 
 $112,000. 
 
 Ware yesterday told why Chaloner wishes the increase, and inci- 
 dentally gave an interesting account of Chaloner's life in Virginia, 
 where he is practically an exile, as he has been adjudged insane in the 
 New York courts. 
 
 Ware will tell the court that Chaloner wants the larger allowance 
 to pay the heirs of his former attorneys, who have since died, and to 
 use for the purpose of obtaining better legislation regarding insanity. 
 Ware also said Chaloner had founded the Mass Meeting Club in 
 Richmond, which is devoting itself to aiding young girls. Chaloner, 
 the lawyer said, would like more money to spend in this work. 
 
 Chaloner also wants $1,000 to publish another edition of his book 
 of poems. 
 
 It was learned yesterday Chaloner has a strong aversion to Tam- 
 many Hall. It is because of this aversion, it was said, Chaloner refused 
 to continue his fight for freedom in the New York courts. 
 
 "Even though Chaloner should obtain his liberty in this State," 
 said Ware yesterday, "I feel quite positive he would not live here. 
 He is perfectly happy in Virginia. Everybody down there loves and
 
 36 APPENDIX 
 
 respects him. In fact, everyone hopes he will not succeed in having 
 the committee appointed to care for his person and estate withdrawn, 
 for fear he will leave Virginia. 
 
 "Chaloner divides his time between his estate, Merry Mills, the 
 Westmoreland Club and Richmond. Since he organized the Mass 
 Meeting Club he has spent about half of his time in Richmond. Any 
 move by Chaloner to obtain his freedom in this State will be bitterly 
 contested. 
 
 "If he should marry in Virginia, and there is nothing there which 
 can prevent him, and should have any children, under the terms of 
 his mother's will his share of the estate will revert to his issue. As 
 he has not been able to spend the income from his part of the Chanler 
 millions, his share has grown. If he dies without children the money 
 will be divided among his relatives. 
 
 "As a matter of fact, Chaloner is no more peculiar than any man 
 who is artistic or a genius, and he is both. He is very generous. 
 Although he has been divorced from Amelie Rives for years, and she 
 has since married, he allows her an annual income of $3,600." 
 
 Thomas T. Sherman, of the law firm of Evarts, Choate & Sher- 
 man, is the committee appointed to care for the person and estate of 
 Chaloner. Joseph Choate, Jr., of that firm, probably will oppose Chal- 
 oner's motion for an increase of income. 
 
 The "Inquirer" 
 
 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 6, 1913 
 Sonnet 16, page 16. 
 
 We understand that John Armstrong Chaloner has published a 
 book of poems, which leads us to suspect that that New York com- 
 mission in lunacy was not so far wrong after all. 
 
 The "Inquirer" 
 
 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 13, 191S 
 
 Right on top of the statement of that alienist that nine-tenths of 
 the poets are crazy, John Armstrong Chaloner had to come out with 
 the announcement that he has written a whole book of "pomes."
 
 APPENDIX 37 
 
 The "Post-Standard" 
 
 Syracuse, New York, May 3, 1913 
 Sonnet 17, page 17. 
 
 "THE SYRACUSE 'POST-STANDARD' OIL."* 
 "Scorpio," by J. A. Chalpner, sonnets of a North Carolina poet, 
 who has the distinction of being legally a lunatic in the State of New 
 York, and some of whose poems should be treated editorially in the 
 New York Sun. Roanoke Rapids, Palmetto Press, $1.50. 
 
 Sonnet 21, page 21. 
 
 "SHAW ONCE MORE." * 
 
 The phrase here "against him fence" needs explanation. It is 
 common among Southern farmers to use the expression to "fence 
 against" where "building a fence about" or "keeping a fence in re- 
 pair" is meant. The phrase is used particularly with regard to stallions, 
 bulls, rams and boars ; which animals are sometimes given to a desire 
 to "wander from their own fireside," in search of "fresh fields and 
 pastures new," sprinkled with females of their species. Hence the 
 farmers "fence against them." A stallion, bull, ram, or boar, which is 
 particularly hard to confine which either jumps his fences, batters 
 them down, bores his way through them, or squeezes through inter- 
 stices therein is looked upon with a malignant eye by the husband- 
 manhe is such a bore, such a nuisance and his price is often affected 
 thereby people being non-desirous of purchasing so fruitful a source 
 of care and constant anxiety, as what they universally speak of as a 
 "roguish" stallion, a "roguish" bull, a "roguish" boar, or a "roguish" 
 ram. They say with an eye of death "that boar's roguish you've got 
 to fence against him." That settles the boar so far as any purchaser 
 but a butcher is concerned. 
 
 Sonnet 23, page 23. 
 
 "THE SHAVING OF SHAG PAT." * 
 
 We hazard the following word touching the concluding couplet of 
 this sonnet 
 
 "Raze" means shaved in the sense of being "skinned." 
 "Zingeur" means a man whose cheek is made of zinc. 
 Bien plante means "stuck."
 
 38 APPENDIX 
 
 The "Illustrated London News" 
 
 London, England, June 15, 191% 
 Sonnet 24, page 24. 
 
 "A PRINCE OF LIARS." * 
 (Sir Sidney Lee on King Edward.) 
 
 "In current criticism of the new volume of the 'Dictionary of Na- 
 tional Biography' (Smith, Elder & Company), which is Volume I of 
 the Second Supplement, attention has been fixed almost exclusively on 
 the memoir of Edward VII by the editor, Sir Sidney Lee. The volume 
 contains in all five hundred articles on noteworthy persons who died 
 between January 22, 1901, and December 31, 1911, including Lord Salis- 
 bury, the Duke of Devonshire, Sir Walter Besant, Lord Acton, John 
 Davidson, Governor Eyre and Sir Redvers Buller. The article on King 
 Edward, however, overshadows the rest in length, interest and import- 
 ance, and, although at first sight received with general approval, it has, 
 on fuller consideration, aroused very strong criticism in several quart- 
 ers. The phenomenon of such a memoir by a writer of Sir Sidney 
 Lee's reputation being denounced as showing 'a deplorable want of 
 judgment and tact' and its publication at the present time as 'an 
 irreparable blunder' is one calculated to shake the foundations of liter- 
 ary faith. There is no doubt that Sir Sidney Lee's memoir does 
 modify very considerably the popular conception of King Edward, 
 formed through the medium of the press in recent years, as the mov- 
 ing spirit of the Entente Cordiale, and as the general Peacemaker of 
 Europe, deliberately using his personal influence for political purposes. 
 There is apparent in the memoir a certain disdain for the press. Sir 
 Sidney speaks disparagingly of 'some French journalists' who hailed 
 King Edward as le roi pacificateur and the originator of the Entente, 
 and he asserts that 'no direct responsibility for its initiation or conclu- 
 sion belonged to him.' Sir Sidney argues that the King exercised his 
 personal charm from purely social motives, from a general desire to 
 promote good fellowship, and not with any deliberate political intent. 
 This is where the critics disagree. Moreover, Sir Sidney's own account 
 of King Edward's visit to Paris in 1903, although apparently intended 
 to discount the King's responsibility for the Entente, really confirms 
 it, making clear that it was just the personal touch, the kingly charm, 
 which brought about what diplomatic overtures had failed to achieve, 
 and kindled that popular enthusiasm (fanned by the press) which offi- 
 cial communications had left cold.
 
 APPENDIX 39 
 
 "He came" (writes Sir Sidney Lee) "at an opportune moment. 
 The French Foreign Minister, M. Delcasse, had for some time been 
 seeking a diplomatic understanding with England, which should re- 
 move the numerous points of friction between the two countries in 
 Egypt, Morocco and elsewhere. The King's Ministers were respon- 
 sive, and his visit to Paris, although it was paid independently of the 
 diplomatic issue, was well calculated to conciliate French public opinion, 
 which was slow in shedding its pro-Boer venom. On the King's arrival 
 the temper of the Parisian populace looked doubtful (May i), but the 
 King's demeanor had the best effect, and in his reply to an address 
 from the British Chamber of Commerce, on his first morning in Paris, 
 he spoke so aptly of the importance of developing good relations be- 
 tween the two countries that there was an immediate renewal of the 
 traditional friendliness which had linked him to the Parisians for 
 nearly half a century. 
 
 "Could there be a fuller admission than the above of the invalu- 
 able services rendered by King Edward to the cause of international 
 good-will, or a more complete refutation of the statement that 'no 
 direct responsibility for its initiation or conclusion belonged to him'?"
 
 40 APPENDIX 
 
 The "Evening World" 
 
 New York City, May S, 191S 
 Sonnet 32, page 32. 
 
 "THE TURKEY TROT." * 
 
 Who's Looney in New York Now? 
 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG CHALONER LASHES CITY ITS RICH, 
 ROTTEN ITS DANCES, DEBAUCHES. 
 
 WRITING SPECIALLY FOR "THE SATURDAY EVENING WORLD," HE SAYS 
 
 NEW YORK Is UNREAL IN EVERYTHING FRIENDSHIP A GOLD 
 
 BRICK, PLEASURE A FEVER AND AGUE, MANNERS 
 
 INEXPRESSIBLY VULGAR. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, brother of ex-Sheriff Bob 
 Chanler of Duchess County, lawyer, traveller and keen critic 
 of men and affairs, holds the unique distinction of being a man 
 legally insane in New York and legally sane in Virginia, his 
 present place of residence. This is a distinction of which Chal- 
 oner is decidedly proud. 
 
 He was once confined in Bloomingdale sent there as the 
 result of a conspiracy on the part of his enemies, Chaloner 
 always maintained but he escaped from the madhouse and 
 finds himself secure in Virginia because it is impossible to ex- 
 tradite an escaped lunatic. He changed his name to Chaloner, 
 the ancient form of the patronymic, after he got away from 
 the asylum. 
 
 A strange book on "Hell" and a collection of poems under 
 the title "Scorpio," recently published, represent Chaloner's lit- 
 erary efforts. 
 
 (By John Armstrong Chaloner.) 
 
 THE MERRY MILLS, COBHAM, VA., May i. Since the Evening 
 World desires to know my views upon some of the unrealities of 
 New York life, in view of its notice of my book of sonnets, many 
 of them satirical, "scorpion" perhaps, I had as well preface my re- 
 marks by stating my credentials for passing judgment upon New York.
 
 APPENDIX 41 
 
 I was born there fifty-one years ago come the tenth of October, 
 1913, in shadow of the old Astor Library literally, in Lafayette Place. 
 
 I was educated in New York City by the Astor family tutor, the 
 late William H. Wilson, graduate of Columbia University, who had 
 tutored my mother, and some years after tutoring me tutored the 
 late Colonel John Jacob Astor, and ended his days as an attache of 
 the Astor Library. After four years at St. John's Military Academy 
 at Ossining-on-Hudson and two years at Rugby School in England 
 thereafter, I spent three years at Columbia University, taking my A. B. 
 degree in that time and my A. M. the next year, and being admitted 
 to the New York bar at the end of my fifth year of steady sojourn 
 in the city with "the Great White Way." 
 
 The blocks on Fifth Avenue from about St. Patrick's Cathedral 
 north were covered with rocks and goats and squatters' shacks. I 
 sailed small boats made of emptied boxes of fig paste or other con- 
 fections while going my peripatetic rounds with my learned tutor in 
 the puddles in the vast vacant waste from Fifth Avenue to well east 
 of Madison and as far north as you like. So New Yorkers see that 
 I am qualified to speak, having grown up with the big town. Coming 
 now to the unrealities of New York life: 
 
 The only loss I am at over said proposition is to find a few reali- 
 ties in New York life, for without deep racking of brain and memory 
 not a solitary pleasant reality comes to mind touching it. 
 
 The solid reality about New York life is the lust for lucre. About 
 the reality of said lust there can be no possible doubt whatever. I 
 forgot there is one other solid reality about New York life, and that 
 is the solidity of the nightsticks borne by the finest uniformed ruffians 
 in the entire length and breadth of the civilized world. I allude, of 
 course, to the falsely alleged "Finest." I nearly had my kneecap frac- 
 tured by a nightstick in the hands of "Clubber" Williams, as the 
 deposed ex-Tenderloin Police Captain Alexander S. Williams was 
 affectionately dubbed by the men he'd clubbed. 
 
 Now to come to the unrealities of New York life. 
 
 Friendship is as unreal there as the average gold brick of com- 
 merce. I never injured a human being in New York. Belonged to 
 more first-class clubs than any man in my set before I resigned from 
 all my New York clubs in disgust, and yet today I don't count one soli- 
 tary man my friend in that whole swarming hive of humanity, Gotham. 
 I had friends, but they were old men, and are all dead men of a 
 previous generation. 
 
 Men of this generation in New York don't know even what the 
 word friendship means. What I say applies only to the rich and pro- 
 fessional and bourgeois or shopkeeper class.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Among the laboring men and longshoremen, truck drivers and the 
 like, friendship is as real as it was in the days of Damon and Pythias. 
 
 But the rich man is rotten. 
 
 Another unreality of New York is pleasure. Pleasure in New York 
 is nothing more nor less than fever, fever and ague thrown in. Fever 
 in the mad sweat to enjoy, ague in the cold sweat that follows the 
 failure to attain enjoyment the cold sweat of disgust, satiety, if not 
 remorse, and a "Head." 
 
 Manners are another unreality of New York life, so unreal as to 
 be phantom-like to be non-existent. Read the authentic descriptions in 
 the press of the debauches that most dinner dances nowadays become, 
 not through the fault of the hostess but owing to the rotten manners of 
 the vulgar nouveau rich who make up so much of modern New York 
 society. 
 
 Please remember that I am blood relative to the only Ward Mc- 
 Allister, creator of the Four Hundred, and I know. 
 
 Young blackguards scratching matches upon white and gold ball- 
 room walls, burning tapestries with cigarette butts, flirting with the 
 ladies' maids in the dressing rooms, and finally falling asleep dead 
 drunk under the tables. 
 
 Above is not a portrait of a debauch in the time of Nero, but of 
 one in New York's Four Hundred in the time of John D. Rockefeller. 
 (Copyright, 1913, by John Armstrong Chaloner.) 
 
 SOME SONNETS BY MR. CHALONER. 
 (From "Scorpio." Copyright by J. A. Chaloner.) 
 
 THE DEVIL'S HORSESHOE. 
 A fecund sight for a philosopher 
 
 Rich as Golconda's mine in lessons rare 
 That gem-bedizzen'd "horseshoe" at th' opera 
 
 Replete with costly hags and matrons fair! 
 His votaresses doth Mammon there array 
 
 His Amazonian Phalanx dread to face ! 
 To Mammon there do they their homage pay, 
 Spangled with jewels, satins, silks and lace. 
 Crones whose old bosoms within their corsets creak; 
 
 Beldames whose slightest glance would fright a horse. 
 Ghouls when they speak one hears the grave-mole squeak 
 Their escorts parvenus of features coarse. 
 A rich array of Luxury and Vice ! 
 But spite of them, the music's very nice.
 
 APPENDIX 43 
 
 COLUMBIA. 
 "My Country "Pis of Thee" I do not sing. 
 
 Your're in too sad a plight, believe me, dear, 
 For plaudits to have aught but a false ring; 
 
 The shallow clang of counterfeit to th' ear. 
 The courage of your soldiers all men know; 
 
 Their daring and their ^patience all have seen. 
 Your sailors' markmanship full well doth show 
 
 How accurate their discipline hath been. 
 But Justice in thy land hath gone astray; 
 
 Believe me, dear, she wanders from the path, 
 And like a drunken harlot reels her way 
 
 Along the broad road that meets the People's wrath! 
 That your Legislatures and your courts you purge, 
 "Sweet land" my land "of Liberty" I urge. 
 
 A SATIRIST'S SALUTATORY. 
 
 The nameless folly of the human race, 
 
 Its cruel selfishness and trackless guile, 
 Make me ashamed at sight of human face 
 
 That stamping-ground for treachery and wile. 
 The smirking smile of callow, empty youth, 
 
 The ripe pomposity of hoary age, 
 The shaded gleam of manhood's lusty tooth, 
 
 Each plays its part upon its petty stage. 
 Seduction, lying, thieving, each in turn 
 
 A murder here and there and then a rape- 
 Each needing only that temptation burn 
 
 And hold fair chance of ultimate escape. 
 Exceptions to said rule exist, 'tis true, 
 
 No such exception doth exist in you. 
 
 OPPRESSION. 
 Oppression was the rod that struck the rock 
 
 And loos'd the fiery floodgates of my tongue. 
 The click behind me o' the prison lock 
 
 Unlock'd the fetters that had kept it dumb. 
 The body free, then was the tongue enchain'd ; 
 
 The body 'prison'd then the tongue sprung free.
 
 44 APPENDIX 
 
 Sonnet 38, page 38. 
 
 "MIDNIGHT." * 
 
 "Midnight" and its five accompanying sonnets were done in "Bloom- 
 ingdale" in the years 1898, 1899 and 1900. They were among the first 
 sonnets ever written by the author. The five accompanying sonnets, 
 to wit: "A Call," "Wordsworth," "The Rubicon of the Unknown," 
 "There Is a Tide" and "Le Noir Faineant." 
 
 Sonnet 39, page 39. 
 
 "A CALL." * 
 
 The above sonnet was written when Trusts were in the zenith of 
 their corruption and pride, when Rockefeller and his companion thieves 
 in Standard Oil appeared to be beyond the reach of the courts in their 
 law breaking: and before the enlightened action of President Roose- 
 velt had awakened the "Valley of Dry Bones" spoken of by the 
 Prophet Ezekiel the Sherman Act into what resulted in the learned 
 ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Tobacco Trust 
 and Standard Oil Trust cases ; which proved that competition was to be 
 forever free in this country, and not as heretofore contraband of 
 war, in the u'ar between the rich and the poor. 
 
 Sonnet 40, page 40. 
 
 "WORDSWORTH." * 
 
 This was the first sonnet ever written by the author. 
 
 Sonnet 43, page 43. 
 
 "LE NOIR FAINfiANT." * 
 
 This sonnet is highly symbolical. 
 
 Suffice it to say the author under the guise of Sir Walter Scott's 
 splendid character in that matchless romance "Ivanhoe" "Le Noir 
 Faineant" who was indifferent to fame but not to injustice-y-pictures 
 himself at the head of a band of Free Lances his sonnets with which 
 to attack wrong-doing in the "seats of the mighty" particularly. 
 
 Carrying the metaphor further, he pictures himself cutting his and 
 his Free Lances' way thro' a horde of encircling hostiles of the
 
 APPENDIX 45 
 
 press. He speaks of his band as "trained men," because they are 
 "trained" in the sense that they are sonnets, and therefore the very 
 essence of literary "training." 
 
 The color of his war-horse is white that being the color of what 
 carries his sonnets which is nothing more nor less than a snow white 
 page of virgin paper. 
 
 As has been more than once observed the author is an ardent ad- 
 mirer of the great profession of Journalism. Shortly a year, or, 
 perhaps, two years before writing said sonnet the author had been 
 savagely maligned by a reporter for the New York Press in an article 
 as mendacious as it was malignant, written by an ex-habitue of "Bloom- 
 ingdale" who had been "doing time" in that institution for the crime 
 of morphinism. Said reporter had been in the "Pen" of "Blooming- 
 dale" for months before the author's arrival therein so he understood 
 and remained there until October, 1897, when he was discharged. 
 
 Thereupon said ex-dope-fiend set to work to turn an honest penny 
 by lying about the author in the following scandalous fashion. We 
 quote from memory. A reference to the files of the New York Press 
 of October 13, 1897, will show the accuracy thereof. The following is 
 not verbatim, but is the gist of the headlines, to wit : "John Arm- 
 strong Chaloner in 'Bloomingdale.' A hopeless lunatic ! His trouble is 
 paresis." What follows is pretty close to verbatim: "The unfortunate 
 man will soon be helpless as a babe." Then follows a lot of flub dub 
 about the author's exciting marriage, ditto divorce, and winds up 
 verbatim as follows : "And now from the cells of 'Bloomingdale' comes 
 another startling chapter of the strange story." 
 
 It was the memory of the above scandalous screed that was in the 
 author's head when he penned that portion of the said sonnet which 
 trenches upon Journalism. 
 
 Sonnet 44, page 44. 
 
 THE ROSARY.* 
 
 (Extract from a letter to a distinguished Southern lawyer enclosing a 
 copy of "The Rosary" a day or so after the latter was composed.) 
 
 In the midst of law's alarms in my tumultuous life of the past 
 several years. I have had few spare moments for sonnet writing, or, in 
 fact, desire thereto. There's a legal maxim you doubtless remember 
 to this effect: "In the clash of arms laws are silent" to paraphrase 
 which I might say Midst the snarl of law the Muses sleep. Hence 
 I have not written ten sonnets in the past ten months. But on Easter
 
 46 APPENDIX 
 
 Monday I felt a longing to view more closely and frequently the 
 radiant visage of the great Voltaire, whose bust by Houdon I im- 
 ported a cast, I mean of same, from the Louvre in Paris in 1894, on 
 my last visit to "the city of light." 
 
 I thought how Voltaire would have excoriated the other side. 
 Accordingly I had my cast of the reduced effigy of "Le Penseur" by 
 Michel Angelo taken from my chimney-piece and placed in the billiard 
 room below, and Voltaire brought up. I soon very soon, apparently 
 became somewhat at least under the literary inspiration, so to speak 
 of Voltaire. His bust had not reposed upon the mantel-piece twenty- 
 four minutes before I began to feel a desire to write sonnets, such as I 
 had not felt for months and months. I promptly yielded to same, and 
 by the watch which I had at my side I wrote the accompanying six 
 sonnets between about ten minutes to 4 P. M. and 5.49 P. M. 
 3-24-13 averaging not more than fifteen to twenty minutes apiece to 
 write, for I rested a few minutes between each, and blotting only one 
 line, and erasing never more than about three words per sonnet. I 
 mention this only to prove my hypothesis that the Voltairean influence 
 was instantaneous, besides being pretty fairly sustained. Of course, I 
 am far from being under the influence of Voltaire in religion. I 
 believe firmly in all the Thirty-nine Articles. 
 
 To "return to our mutton," and wind up. In said sonnets I have 
 attempted a somewhat daring thing. So far as I know the challenge of 
 Jehovah to Job found in the last two chapters or so of that wonder- 
 ful book to wit : "Gird up thy loins like a man and answer me," or 
 words to said effect, for I quoted entirely from memory not having 
 a Bible on my floor in both quotations I've made in the sonnets 
 the last in number six, found on or about the last line of the Bible, 
 in the last chapter of the Book of Revelation, so far as I know no 
 one has ever taken up said glove thrown down to mankind by Jehovah 
 Jah, the Man of War and replied to the putrid injustice and tyrannical 
 wrong-doing with which the world is rife, and for which He is largely 
 responsible since He allegedly created the world and all that therein 
 is, and could wipe out tyranny did He so desire. I furnish a sound 
 argument I'm not called upon to supply brains for its reception, as 
 Doctor Samuel Johnson profoundly observed. To resume. 
 
 No poet nor prose-writer has ever seen the superb chance lurk- 
 ing therein for a legitimate, frank and fearless criticism, even heart- 
 to-heart talk with Omnipotence. Since the Pearly Gates are opened, 
 the Celestial and repelling Bars are for the sole _and only occasion 
 throughout the whole length and breadth of the Scriptures mark that, 
 please the Celestial Bars are for once and once only and forever,
 
 APPENDIX 47 
 
 let down-! This gives the hardy adventurer in the field of inexorable 
 and fearless and impeccable Logic The Guide of God the chance 
 of a life time to square accounts with God Almighty, if things have 
 not been especially coming his way. This chance I took. Whether I 
 made the most of the said golden opportunity or not is for you to 
 judge. But in my humble way I made a serious and sustained effort 
 to place before the Tribunal of the Great White Throne my cause 
 for impatience at the delayed arrival of Jesus Christ upon earth; and 
 the establishment of His promised rule of iron which alone can keep 
 that crooked, cowardly animal man in anything approaching an attitude 
 where his hands are outside his neighbor's pockets. 
 
 I am fully aware that the tone of the six sonnets would not meet 
 with the enthusiastic approval of the "W. C. T. U." or the average 
 Dorcas Sewing Society. Still, there is neither a profane or highly- 
 colored word in all their broad length of eighty-four lines. 
 
 In conclusion, I've disguisedly put the plaint in the mouth of a 
 devout but world-weary monk, who in his desert solitude of say, 
 En-gedi finding his old time Rosary rather outworn, has made a new 
 one of six big beads, each of which is a pigeon-blood ruby of a cri 
 du coeur of a disgusted man who worships Ideality and thirsts for 
 even the most meagre, threadbare specimen of justice, honesty and 
 truth: and from fifty years of searching like Diogenes himself dis- 
 pairs of ever finding them in man.
 
 48 APPENDIX 
 
 The "Tribune" 
 
 New York City, June 10, 1913 
 
 Chaloner May Have $1 ,500,000 For Asking 
 
 BUT HE REFUSES TO APPLY TO NEW YORK COURT FOR 
 DECREE OF SANITY. 
 
 FIGHTING FOR PRINCIPLE. 
 
 CONTENDS STATE BENCH HAD NO AUTHORITY TO DECLARE HIM MENTALLY 
 INCOMPETENT IN NEED OF MONEY. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, of Virginia, formerly Chaloner, of New 
 York, and a brother of former Lieutenant Governor Lewis Stuyvesant 
 Chanler and of Robert W. Chanler, can come back to this State and 
 have himself declared sane if only he will make the application to the 
 New York Supreme Court. Such a decree will entitle him to his 
 property, valued at $1,500,000. 
 
 But Mr. Chaloner, who is regarded as insane in this State and 
 sane in Virginia, refused to accept the invitation. He is fighting for 
 a principle. His contention is that the New York courts never had 
 jurisdiction over him and were without authority to declare him men- 
 tally incompetent. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner, through his counsel, Frederick A. Ware, filed a 
 petition in the Supreme Court yesterday asking that his allowance 
 from the income on his property, which now amounts to $17,000 a 
 year, be increased to $33,000. To prove that he needs the additional 
 $16,000 for his support, Mr. Chaloner submitted several volumes bear- 
 ing on the lunacy laws of several States which he has published. 
 
 He wanted $8,000 of the increased allowance to enable him to 
 undertake a movement to amend these laws in the different States. 
 The remainder of the money, he said, he needed to keep up his estate 
 in Virginia and to pay his attorneys. Another volume submitted by 
 Chaloner was entitled "Four Years Behind the Bars of Bloomingdale." 
 which covers his experience before he escaped from Bloomingdale 
 Asylum and went to Virginia. Also there was a book of poems of 
 which he was the author, entitled "Scorpio."
 
 APPENDIX 49 
 
 Mr. Chaloner explained in his papers how he came to be sent to 
 the asylum. He said Stanford White, who was killed by Harry K. 
 Thaw, induced him to come to New York, and when he got here two 
 alienists examined him at his hotel and had him committed without 
 giving him a chance to prove his sanity. 
 
 The statement that Mr. Chaloner may, if he so chooses, have him- 
 self declared sane was made by Thomas T. Sherman, who has been 
 guardian of his property. Mr. Sherman said he would not oppose 
 any such move provided the application was made in the New York 
 Supreme Court, a point which Mr. Chaloner will not accede to. 
 
 Mr. Ware, in making his application, denied his client was insane, 
 and said he desired the additional money to do some good. He de- 
 clared the attorneys who were opposing the increase were paid out 
 of the estate of Mr. Chaloner. 
 
 Joseph H. Choate, Jr., who opposed the granting of the increase, 
 said the only evidence that Mr. Chaloner was sane was the fact he had 
 engaged lawyers to get the increase for him. Justice Giegerich asserted 
 he wanted an opportunity to examine all the papers in the case and 
 reserved decision.
 
 50 APPENDIX 
 
 The "Evening World" 
 
 New York City, June 10, 1913 
 
 Chaloner Says Offer to Regain Property is An 
 Old Trick 
 
 DECLARES CHANGE OF COURT WOULD MEAN PROBING OF His SANITY 
 AGAIN. 
 
 (Special to the Evening World.} 
 
 RICHMOND, VA., June 10. "It's merely one of their old tricks," 
 declared John Armstrong Chaloner before leaving today for Merry 
 Mills, commenting on press despatches from New York saying that 
 Thomas T. Sherman, guardian of his estate, had offered to permit him 
 to regain possession of his property, valued at nearly $2,000,000, pro- 
 vided he would make application in the State courts. 
 
 Chaloner was in a dentist chair when the news reached him over 
 the 'phone. "They have been up to that trick for years," he said, 
 hastily leaving the chair. "They want me to transfer the issue from 
 the Federal to the State courts so that my sanity may be probed again. 
 But they won't catch me napping. I am sane in Virginia and North 
 Carolina and that permits me to continue my fight in Uncle Sam's 
 courts. 
 
 "It is true that I am resorting to the New York State courts to 
 have my income increased, but that is only a subsidiary issue. The 
 principal issue will remain in the Federal courts until it is settled, 
 regardless of any proposition that may come from Sherman or any 
 of those affiliated with him. I don't propose to get into the clutches 
 of Sherman's Tammany Hall courts if I can help it." 
 
 Chaloner made the wires fairly hum as he raked his guardian over 
 the coals. He spoke as if it were little short of brazen audacity for 
 Sherman to make such a proposition, knowing that it had been turned 
 down point blank on previous occasions. 
 
 "The proposition was made first ten years ago," he said. "It is 
 just a few months ago that my brother-in-law came forward with the 
 same overtures."
 
 APPENDIX 51 
 
 The "Evening Journal" 
 
 New York City, June 2, 1913 
 
 Chaloner Asks $32,000 a Year; Who's Looney? 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, who has made the world merrier for 
 his having lived in it by inventing the phrase "Who's looney now?" is 
 before the courts of New York again. He has outgrown his annual 
 income of $16,000 a year or his schemes have and he is anxious 
 that the Supreme Court raise it to $32,000. Frederick A. Ware, a 
 former Assemblyman, as Mr. Chaloner's attorney, will present the 
 petition today in special term. 
 
 Owing to the fact that the courts of New York have not changed 
 their opinion regarding Mr. Chaloner's insanity, he will be unable to 
 attend the hearing in person. Instead, he will await the result at his 
 Virginia home, where he is regarded as being as sane as any other resi- 
 dent of the State. 
 
 And so the question must be answered all over again, and in the 
 language of many nationalities. As Blucher remarked to Wellington 
 after the battle of Waterloo, "Wer ist nun verrucht?" 
 
 The most substantial ground for Mr. Chaloner's move to double 
 his income, as Mr. Ware will explain to the court, is that the Chaloner 
 estate is increasing every year and now yields about $112,000 an- 
 nually. Under those circumstances he has no hesitation in asking for 
 a little more than has heretofore been his portion. Or, to quote from 
 an unpublished account of Mark Anthony's oration over the body of 
 Caesar, "Quis est nunc insanus ?" 
 
 HE HAS OTHER MOTIVES. 
 
 But there are other motives nearer and dearer to Mr. Chaloner's 
 heart, and which relate to the high cost of realizing one's ambitions, 
 that he will submit to the Supreme Bench. First of all, there is the 
 fact that his former attorneys died before he had settled his account 
 with them. Their heirs, however, have inherited the right to the un- 
 paid fees, and Mr. Chaloner fears he will find it difficult to meet 
 these debts on his present income, and do everything else he has 
 pledged himself to do. 
 
 "Qui est fou maintenant ?" in the words of Andre de Fouquieres. 
 
 One pet project of his that will require more money than he has 
 at his disposal is the improvement of insanity laws. It was under the
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 present insanity laws that Mr. Chaloner was adjudged insane, and it is 
 the present insanity laws that have cribbed, cabined and confined his 
 life and movements since that judgment was delivered. For his own 
 comfort, as well as for the convenience of others who may be in a 
 like predicament at any future time, the author of "Who's Looney 
 Now" wants a set of laws on the statute books that will enable a judge 
 to answer that question without making any such mistakes as were 
 made in his case. 
 
 Not a bad idea at all, is it? As Sancho Panza remarked to Don 
 Quixote after he had rescued him from the windmills, "Quien es un 
 bobo ahora?" 
 
 Further, Mr. Chaloner is the founder of the Mass Meeting Club 
 in Richmond. This is an organization devoted to helping young girls. 
 Mr. Chaloner's funds are its mainstay, and it is one of the young 
 millionaire's griefs that he cannot finance it more liberally. Too much 
 money, he believes, cannot be spent in such a cause. 
 
 Speaking as one great Dane to another, "Vvem er nu blod?" 
 There are a good many crazier ways of spending one's money, take it 
 from Mr. Chaloner. 
 
 AND SOME MORE. 
 
 If these reasons fail to satisfy the Supreme Court His Honor will 
 be politely requested to take note of Mr. Chaloner's plan to publish 
 a new edition of his volume of poems. 
 
 True, the court interpreter may mutter in Hungarian, under his 
 breath, "Ki a bolond mostan?" 
 
 But not after he has been informed of the enormous demand there 
 has been for this little brochure. He'll be sorry he said it then. 
 
 The judge, however, may be prompted to ask why, if the volume 
 has been so flatteringly received, has it not brought its author suffi- 
 cient profits to enable him to float a second edition out of the pro- 
 ceeds of the first? 
 
 A poser, eh? As Count Witte whispered to Admiral Rojestvensky 
 when he got back to the Nevsky Prospect, "Kmo ecm gypnom menepe ?" 
 
 But the answer is very simple. Offer outpourings of his Muse 
 for sale? Commercialize his art? Never! That is something of 
 which John Armstrong Chaloner never has and never shall be guilty! 
 The writing of these poems is their own reward. He takes great 
 pleasure in giving away a copy to every one he can think of who may 
 be possessed of the amount of intelligence required for their apprecia- 
 tion. And not a copy has ever been returned. Now the supply is 
 exhausted, and he needs the money to put out another edition to 
 satisfy the demand for them.
 
 APPENDIX 53 
 
 ABANDONS FIGHT IN NEW YORK. 
 
 "Hathch koo lelquisa?" in the words of Sitting Bull the night 
 before the Custer massacre. 
 
 At the same time that the news of this fight for more funds be- 
 came public it was learned that Chaloner had given up his battle for 
 freedom in the New York courts. Why spend any more money in 
 proving to the satisfaction of the New York State authorities that he is 
 sane, when he wouldn't live here even if they agreed to take it all 
 back and admit that he has as much sense as the common run of 
 humanity? He doesn't have to prove to the people or the courts of 
 Virginia that he isn't crazy. They admit it. Nobody interferes with 
 him or attempts to restrain him down there. He is loved and re- 
 spected by his neighbors. And he does just as he pleases. Why should 
 he purchase a freedom that is good only in New York State, when 
 he wouldn't use it as often as he would a pass over the Trans- 
 Siberian Railway? 
 
 "II quale son scrocco ora?" as they say in the best Neapolitan 
 society. 
 
 The author of this entertaining article either our distinguished 
 friend of twenty years' standing, its editor Mr. Arthur Brisbane, or 
 one of Mr. Brisbane's talented young men is in error, slightly, in 
 one sole particular in this otherwise mathematically exact story: and 
 we hasten to say that the error in question is no fault of his, for 
 he simply copied it out of the statement of our distinguished trial 
 counsel, Hon. Frederick A. Ware, of 35 Nassau Street, Manhattan. 
 
 Mr. Ware was in error, from the sinister fact that, although chief 
 counsel in all our several and sundry law suits; and author of the 
 brief he plead to so ably June Qth before Mr. Justice Giegerich, of 
 the New York Supreme Court, we are separated from our trial 
 counsel by hundreds of miles for safety's sake since a visit to New 
 York, under the present illegal lunacy laws tolerated by press, pulpit, 
 public, bar and bench with some noble exceptions of the "Empire 
 State," our liberty would not be worth five cent's purchase. A perusal 
 of the two pages of criticism upon our law book "The Lunacy Law of 
 the World," which closes this Appendix, will show that New York's 
 immoral apathy will reap a crop of scorn at the hands of the future 
 historian little short of that merited by Sodom and Gomorrah. 
 
 Mr. Ware being separated from us by a great gulf as afore- 
 said could not possibly be mathematically exact as to all the little 
 non-material literary details in his stunning exposition of the situation.
 
 54 APPENDIX 
 
 He stated, in effect, that "Scorpio" was not to be sold, but given away. 
 The Evening Journal followed him here perforce into the camp of 
 error. "Scorpio" is to be sold, provided we can get enough money from 
 the New York Supreme Court to properly advertise the exceedingly 
 satisfactory long array of literary criticisms thereon, displayed in this 
 Appendix; and thereby satisfy the natural curiosity aroused naturally 
 by such satisfactory encomiums. 
 
 We do not intend to sell except an exceptionally large demand 
 appears but do expect to, and desire to, give away, among working 
 people, our fortnightly lectures of a Sunday night at the "Rex" 
 Theatre Seventh and Broad Streets, Richmond, Va. As the lec- 
 tures are free, so should be the account of same in a reasonable 
 quantity in order that the vile evil may be brought to an end, which 
 at present afflicts the fair city of Richmond, owing largely to the 
 shameless indifference of the legislative committee, who refused at 
 the last session of the Virginia General Assembly, to raise the age- 
 of-consent-limit to at least sixteen, from its abominable, scandalous, 
 criminally low limit of fourteen years. 
 
 Taking advantage of this state of affairs, certain villains with 
 money enough to either own or hire automobiles, set to work to 
 systematically open up a reign of seduction and debauchery among the 
 little daughters of the poor one day or more over said criminally 
 low limit of fourteen. 
 
 These Hell-hounds would take the children out "Joy riding" at 
 night and their Hellish work was done either in the automobile, a 
 few miles outside the city limits, or in bushes contiguous to the auto- 
 mobile or elsewhere. A perfect storm was raised last fall in the 
 Protestant pulpits of Richmond, calling for a reform of this reign of 
 the Minotaur in Richmond. 
 
 But the people were quiescent. There was no sign or sound of a 
 mass meeting. 
 
 So we started what we term the "Mass Meeting Club of Rich- 
 mond," to which all classes of society are invited bar the silk stock- 
 ing brigade; or wonied class, because ff is from them that the very 
 crimes in question originated the rich in this instance^ actually prey- 
 ing upon the daughters of the poor, and turning them into prostitutes. 
 
 Such straight talk as the above would therefore not be music in the 
 ears of the Richmond rich and Richmond is a very prosperous city 
 indeed commercially speaking therefore the author of "Scorpio" be- 
 ing more or less "wise," from having been hunted and hounded for 
 lo! now these many years by the rich of New York as fully de-
 
 APPENDIX 55 
 
 scribed in the Prologue hereto namely nearly seventeen years did 
 not invite the silk stocking brigade. 
 
 The mass meeting is the lineal descendant of the old Anglo-Saxon 
 form of government by a grand national council of its people and 
 chiefs, under their King, in council assembled the whole body of the 
 free people were eligible^ to appear at said mighty host, and take part 
 in the affairs of the nation. Its name was the Witenagemot. 
 
 ^ Since September, 1912, we have been addressing full houses fort 
 nightly in Richmond, as aforesaid, and the following we hove thus 
 obtained proves beyond cavil that the mass meeting idea, on a perma- 
 nent basis, open to all, and free to all, financed by ourselves and per- 
 manently organised will be a fixture in Richmond, so soon as we can 
 get enough of our own money out of the reluctant clutches of Thomas 
 T. Sherman now unlawfully retaining same Jo print and disseminate 
 the literature describing the meetings of the "Richmond Mass Meeting 
 Club." 
 
 The first edition of "Scorpio" was so small some three hun- 
 dred copies only because our funds did not admit of a larger edition 
 it was entirely exhausted by the time the rather long line of news- 
 papers and literary friends to which "Scorpio" was sent had been 
 accommodated. 
 
 What the Law Reviews Have to Say About 
 "The Lunacy Law of the World" 
 
 By John Armstrong Chaloner, A. B., A. M., Member of the Bar 
 
 NORTHEASTERN REPORTER 
 
 St. Paul, Minn., July, 1907. 
 
 "The Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C, has printed a book 
 on 'The Lunacy Law of the World,' by J. A. Chaloner, of the same 
 place. It is an examination of the laws of the States and Territories, 
 and of the Six Great Powers of Europe, on this subject, and is in 
 terms a very severe arraignment of most of them. It would appear 
 that the iniquitous system against which Charles Reade waged war has 
 by no means disappeared. People may still be incarcerated in insane 
 asylums without notice, and without an opportunity to be heard, either
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 in person or by attorney; and once in an asylum, a patient has little 
 protection against the keepers. They may be wise, and kind, but the 
 instances of cruelty which occasionally reach the public indicate that 
 this is not a safe assumption. Mr. Chaloner holds a brief for the ac- 
 cused, and puts his case very strongly, but, in -view of the cases he 
 cites, it would be impossible to state the matter too strongly. He says : 
 
 " 'A survey of the field of Lunacy Legislation the world over pre- 
 sents to-day an appalling spectacle. It affords, to put it mildly, the 
 strongest card in favor of anarchy of no law ever laid upon the 
 table of world-politics ; and throws into lamentable relief the fact that 
 in about forty per cent, of the States and Territories of the United 
 States neither the Bench with many honorable exceptions the Bar 
 nor the Legislature, can be entrusted with safeguarding that funda- 
 mental principle of liberty, the absolute rights of the individual.' 
 
 "The book should awaken public interest in an important matter." 
 
 THE OHIO LAW BULLETIN. 
 
 Norwalk, Ohio, July 29, 1907. 
 "Chaloner, Lunacy Law of the World. 
 
 "A criticism' of the practice of adjudging persons incompetent and 
 depriving them of their liberties without due process of law, fortified 
 by decisions of the courts, is the theme upon which the author has de- 
 veloped this interesting and instructive work. The lunacy law of all 
 the States of the Union and six of the Great Powers of Europe are 
 reviewed, and surprising as it may seem, nearly half of the States and 
 Great Britain fail to require notice of the inquisition to be given the 
 alleged lunatic or incompetent; twenty-four of the States and Ger- 
 many and Great Britain fail to afford him opportunity to appear and 
 be heard. The author makes it conclusively appear that there is needed 
 revision of these laws. Edited by J. A. Chaloner, counsellor at law. 
 Published by the Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C." 
 
 THE OKLAHOMA LAW JOURNAL. 
 
 Guthrie, Oklahoma, September, 1907. 
 
 "The Lunacy Law of the World, 
 
 By J. A. Chaloner. 
 
 Published by the Palmetto Press, 
 
 Roanoke Rapids, N. C. 
 
 This is a volume of nearly four hundred pages, well printed, but 
 bound in paper covers a point always detrimental to the sale as well 
 as the dignity of a law book. However, when the contents are care-
 
 APPENDIX 57 
 
 fully read and reflected upon, it is found one of the best and most 
 needed books that has appeared for many years. 
 
 The subject of Lunacy Law in spite of all the legislation we have 
 had in other departments, has received little attention. In fact, it is 
 little better than when Charles Reade wrote his book, entitled, 'Hard 
 Cash.' The fact that many mentally deranged persons are incapable of 
 comprehending the nature of the steps taken to place them in custody, 
 the custom has become prevalent that no process is needed to place 
 them on trial as to their sanity. It is to be remembered that in every 
 State of the Union, and in fact, in every country of the world, fraud 
 has been perpetrated on men and women of means by greedy relatives 
 and the unfortunate ones placed in asylums for no other purpose than 
 to secure control of their property. And further it should be remem- 
 bered that one once adjudged insane if he cannot secure a hearing of 
 his right to restoration through the influence of true friends he is for- 
 ever barred of the right to be heard. He has lost the standing of a 
 citizen. There is much in Mr. Chaloner's book that should be well 
 studied by every lawyer and legislator as to what should be done to 
 secure the constitutional rights of every one alleged to be of unsound 
 mind. The book carefully goes over the law of lunacy in the forty- 
 five States and Territories as well as that of the leading nations of 
 Europe." 
 
 LANCASTER LAW REVIEW. 
 
 Lancaster, Pa., September 30, 1907. 
 
 "The Lunacy Law of the World. 
 
 By J. A. Chaloner, Counsellor at Law. 
 
 Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C. 
 
 The work is a review of the lunacy laws of the States and Terri- 
 tories of this country together with those of Great Britain, France, 
 Italy, Germany, Austria and Russia, with a view of showing their de- 
 fects mainly in regard to affording proper protection to the alleged 
 lunatic. 
 
 To those of us who have been accustomed to look with compla- 
 cency on our lunacy laws, remembering how lunatics were thrown into 
 dungeons and chained and tortured but a short time ago, this book 
 brings home some startling truths. It shows clearly the dangers of 
 that class of legislation in force in England and many of our Mates 
 (as our own Act of April 20, 1869, P. L., 78), which permits an alleged 
 lunatic^ to be incarcerated upon the certificate of two or more reputable 
 
 yS1 The S author contends that in lunacy proceedings notice to the al-
 
 58 APPENDIX 
 
 leged lunatic ought to be absolutely essential and that the trial should 
 be by jury in the presence of the alleged lunatic; that any other prac- 
 tice is a violation of his constitutional rights and dangerous, in that it 
 might be used by designing relatives for fraudulent purposes. 
 
 The importance of a jury trial in such cases has been recognised 
 by Judge Brewstcr in Com. ex rel. vs. Kirkbride, 2 Brewster, 402. The 
 wit of habeaus corpus is not a sufficient safeguard. 
 
 In setting forth the importance of allowing the alleged lunatic an 
 opportunity to appear, the author says : 
 
 "The test of sanity is a mental test wholly within the power of the 
 accused to accomplish and without any witnesses, professional or lay, 
 to back him up. Suppose twO ( paid experts in insanity in the pay of 
 the other side, swear defendant's mind cannot tell what his past history 
 has been that said defendant's mind is a total blank upon the subject. 
 Would that professional and paid and interested oath stand against the 
 defendant's refutation thereof by taking the stand and promptly and 
 lucidly giving his past history, provided he were afforded his legal 
 privilege of taking the stand in place of being kept away from court 
 and having to allow his liberty and property to be perjured away from 
 him in his enforced absence?' (Page 217.) 
 
 Collusion would be very difficult to prove. It has been held that 
 no presumption arises from the fact that the parties certifying to the 
 alleged lunacy were in fact mistaken. Williams vs. Le Bar, 141 Pa., 
 149. 
 
 The subject is an important and interesting one, and the book 
 shows extensive and careful research. It is forcefully written and car- 
 ries conviction" 
 
 LAW NOTES. 
 
 Northport, New York, September, 1907. 
 "The Lunacy Law of the World. 
 
 By J. A. Chaloner, Palmetto Press, 
 Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. 
 The writer is assuredly earnest, . . . setting forth the unques- 
 tionable, abuses to which the state of the lunacy laws has given rise. 
 
 The exhaustiveness of his research into the question compels ad- 
 miration; an author who can work through lunacy laws from the time 
 of the Emperor Conrad down to the present." 
 
 Pelmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. 
 Bound in Law Buckram; Five Dollars.
 
 APPENDIX 59 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 "All the World's a Stage" 21 
 
 An Echo to Walt Whitman's "Barbaric Yawp" 14 
 
 Armour of the Soul, The 54 
 
 Bloodthirsty 29 
 
 Box of Kittens, A 30 
 
 Britannia 7 
 
 Call, A 38 
 
 "Canny Andy" 28 
 
 Columbia 8 
 
 Death 53 
 
 First Hewing of the World's Pioneers, The 20 
 
 Fountain of a Hundred Jets, The 12 
 
 Fresh-Water Ananias, A 56 
 
 Future Duke of Asteroid, The 57 
 
 G. K. Chesterton 27 
 
 Germania (i) 5 
 
 Germania (2) 6 
 
 Jezebel 31 
 
 "Le Noir Faineant" 43 
 
 Life-Dance, The 3 
 
 Maeterlinck ^ 
 
 Magic Crucible, A 4 
 
 Midnight 3 
 
 My Parents 30 
 
 Panel-House, A : 9 
 
 Poet-Caravan, A 
 
 Prince of Liars, A 2 4 
 
 Queen of the Pacific, The ll
 
 60 APPENDIX 
 
 Page 
 
 Rosary, The (i) 45 
 
 Rosary, The (2) 46 
 
 Rosary, The (3) 47 
 
 Rosary, The (4) 48 
 
 Rosary, The (5) 49 
 
 Rosary, The (6) 50 
 
 Rubicon of the Unknown, The 41 
 
 Salt- Water Ananias, A 55 
 
 Salut aux Aieux (To Ancestors) 13 
 
 Sans a Wedding Garment 10 
 
 Shaw Once More 21 
 
 Shaw Macaw 22 
 
 "Shaving of Shag Pat," The 23 
 
 Solitude 33 
 
 Syracuse Post-Standard-Ot7 17 
 
 That Pension-List 9 
 
 "The Love of Money is the Root of All Evil" 35 
 
 "There is a Tide, etc." 42 
 
 "The Heart is Deceitful," etc 34 
 
 Tolstoy 25 
 
 Tricolore, The 15 
 
 Turkey-Trot, The 32 
 
 Twentieth Century Psalm ( i ) 51 
 
 Twentieth Century Psalm (2) 52 
 
 Watch-Towers of Liberty, The 16 
 
 Whipping- Post, The 18 
 
 Wordsworth 40
 
 APPENDIX 61 
 
 ALIGNMENT OF SONNETS. 
 
 1. A Poet-Caravan. 
 
 2. "All the World's a Stage." 
 
 3. The Life-Dance. 
 
 4. A Magic Crucible. 
 
 5. Germania (i). 
 
 6. Germania (2). 
 7'. Britannia. 
 
 8. Columbia. 
 
 9. That Pension-List 
 
 10. Sans a Wedding Garment. 
 
 11. The Queen of the Pacific. 
 
 12. The Fountain of a Hundred Jets. 
 
 13. Salut aux Aieux (to Ancestors). 
 
 14. An Echo to Walt Whitman's "Barbaric Yawp.' 
 
 15. The Tricolore. 
 
 16. The Watch-Towers of Liberty. 
 17'. The Syracuse Post-Standard-Ot7. 
 
 18. The Whipping-Post. 
 
 19. A Panel-House. 
 
 20. The First Hewing of the World's Pioneers. 
 
 21. Shaw Once More. 
 
 22. Shaw Macaw. 
 
 23. "The Shaving of Shag-Pat." 
 
 24. A Prince of Liars. 
 
 25. Tolstoy. 
 
 26. Maeterlinck. 
 
 27. G. K. Chesterton. 
 
 28. "Canny Andy." 
 
 29. Bloodthirsty! 
 
 30. A Box of Kittens. 
 
 31. Jezebel. 
 
 32. The Turkey-Trot. 
 
 33. Solitude. 
 
 34. "The Heart is Deceitful, etc." 
 
 35. "The Love of Money, etc." 
 
 36. My Parents. 
 
 37. They Are Seven. 
 
 38. Midnight. 
 
 39. A Call. 
 
 40. Wordsworth.
 
 62 APPENDIX 
 
 41. The Rubicon of the Unknown. 
 
 42. "There is a Tide, etc." 
 
 43. "Le Noir Faineant." 
 
 44. The Rosary (i). 
 
 45. The Rosary (2). 
 
 46. The Rosary (3). 
 
 47. The Rosary (4). 
 
 48. The Rosary (5). 
 
 49. The Rosary (6). 
 
 50. A Twentieth Century Psalm (i). 
 
 51. A Twentieth Century Psalm (2). 
 
 52. Death. 
 
 53. The Armour of the Soul. 
 
 54. A Salt-Water Ananias. 
 
 55. A Fresh-Water Ananias. 
 
 56. The Future Duke of Asteroid. 
 
 7? 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALTFC 
 AT
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 This ieok is DUB on the last date stamped below 
 
 13 1990 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 LIBRARY
 
 3 1158 01253